


Coming of Age in Lima

by tawg



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Gen, Genderswap, M/M, Multi, always a girl Finn, background abusive relationship: bryan ryan/will schuester, background bryan ryan/will schuester, crushing on a teacher, ensemble fic, female finn hudson, mentions of fiona hudson/rachel berry, mentions of noah puckerman/quinn fabray, season one rewrite, unrequited fiona hudson/will schuester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-26
Updated: 2010-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-26 20:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fiona Hudson does her best to fit in, and her friends do their best to help her. But then Mr Schue talks her into joining Glee and a whole lot changes, for both better and worse</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Fiona introduces herself, high school sucks, and Glee club is formed.

I’ve been doing my best to blend in ever since the sixth grade, which isn’t easy when you’re a foot taller than all of the boys in your class. It’s harder when the boobs kick in. Junior high was a pain like that – girls started talking about makeup, boys started talking about girls, and in the middle of it I had to untangle my own legs every time I tried to stand up. But despite the legs and the boobs and the fact that I wasn’t very good at being a girl, it was okay. I had my best friend Puck to punch me in the shoulder (or the upper arm, when I got taller than him) and call me names. And being friends with Puck meant that I was still on all of the sports teams, and kicking butt, and that had been alright.

And then came high school. High school is a lot harder because Puck and me aren’t in all of the same classes, and it’s not cool to play sport during lunch, you have to be on a team and play after school. And you know what teams McKinley High has for girls? Softball, and the Cheerios. Well, there’s also wrestling, kind of, but those people scare me. And Coach Sylvester has made it clear that she doesn’t want my clumsy body contaminating any of her squad, and that all of the boy positions have been filled anyway.

Thanks, Coach.

But I hate high school. Everyone calls me Fiona, except for Puck, who calls me Finn which I like. But it’s really hard to explain why he calls me that without looking like a baby. Girls wear skirts, and somehow wear makeup without looking like clowns, and apparently having short hair makes you weird. While people like Quinn made their way to the top of the pile quickly, people like me stayed at the bottom. I just don’t know how to dress, or how to act. But, as Quinn said, at least no one can see my face all the way up here. I mean, she’d smiled when she said it, and I’d smiled back, and I think we’re maybe kind of friends. She puts up with me, and she makes me walk in front of her between classes, so I carve out a path for her in the crowd. But she lets me copy off her in English sometimes.

I don’t know, maybe ‘hate’ is too big a word. I do my best to blend in, and with Puck and Quinn looking out for me it’s not so hard. I don’t hate the cafeteria food, I do okay in my classes. I even have a favourite class – Spanish, with Mr Schuester. I’m not very good at it, but I don’t mind because he doesn’t seem to mind either. He draws smiley faces in people’s workbooks when he marks them, which Quinn thinks is the dorkiest thing ever, but I’m pretty sure we’re having a ‘who can draw the better smiley face’-off.

High school is survivable. I mean, even though I can’t play on the football team – they all play like girls anyway – and even though I can’t cheer for the team, I’m still kind of useful. Being besties with Puck means that I know all of the football team, and being friends with Quinn means knowing a whole heap of the Cheerios, which means that every time someone needs to put a name to a face, or know if someone was single, well, they treat me like I’m a secret agent. Sometimes I even get told to who to sit with – when Santana wants to flirt with Puck, I have to sit with the guys so Quinn and her have an excuse to come over. I’m like a big, dumb gateway to the opposite sex. It can be annoying, but it still beats sitting alone, you know? I don’t really see the appeal of either sex, but you can bet I keep my fucking mouth shut about that. I’m getting pretty good at playing along though, and it’s not like guys are lining up to ask me out anyway.

“What would I do? Ask a guy to bring his own box to stand on when we went out?”

Quinn laughed. “You need reverse-high heels,” she said. “Shoes to make you shorter.”

“Or she could just date a guy who wears heels,” Santana replied. “I’m sure the gay kid would have a pair.”

I rolled my eyes. “You just think he’s gay because he has better skin than you.”

“He sits next to you in Spanish, right?” Quinn said, the wheels in her head turning. “Maybe he does like you.”

Santana snorted. “Liking Fiona is as good as being gay.”

“Liking Santana will give you a rash,” I replied. Santana snapped her head around, her bitch-face on, but at the end of the day I’m over a head taller than her, and that isn’t a fight Santana is comfortable she’d win.

When I looked around the cafeteria, I saw Kurt sitting two tables over, looking down, his cheeks flushed. I waited until he looked over out of the corner of his eye, and I rolled my eyes dramatically. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I smiled back. The corner of his mouth twitched in response. When I returned to the conversation, however, I found both Puck and Quinn staring at me with very different looks on their faces.

I guess I’m not as good at playing along as I figure.

*

“So,” Puck said later when we were shooting hoops after school. “You hear what Schuester’s up to?”

“No?” I suspected he was bringing this up to distract me, since I always kick his ass at Horse.

“You know how Ryerson came out as a total pervert?”

“Yeah, which surprised exactly no one.”

“Right,” Puck paused, taking a million years to line up a shot. “Well, since he’s gone Schuester decided to take over Glee club. Except, since Gaylord is still in counselling he’s got a total of one member.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. There are tryout sheets everywhere, and he came around during practice to try and get some of us to join. Like that’s going to happen.”

“So your mad karaoke skills will remain a secret,” I teased, as I let the ball fly.

“You’re a fucking freak,” Puck said, as he watched the ball sail through the hoop. “Anyway, I figured I’d let you know in case he tries to sign up the Spanish class. Probably bribe you guys with extra credit or something.”

“I’m surprised you’re not more into it,” I said. “I mean, you’ll take any excuse to miss a class, and don’t the Glee kids have practice whenever they feel like it?”

“Kid. Singular. And that should tell you all you need to know about Glee. It’s so lame that not even the lame-os like it.” Puck missed the shot again.

I grinned. “And that’s another slushie you owe me.”

“I can’t wait until you get dissected by science.”

*

But Puck was right, there were signup sheets everywhere. And there were even a couple of names on them. Kurt, I knew. And Artie the wheelchair kid.

“How’d he even reach up to put his name on the list?” Santana asked.

“He’s faking it,” I replied. “He’s only in the chair because chicks dig a guy with his own wheels.” Quinn tried to repress a smile, but Brittany clearly didn’t get it. Santana gave me one of her patented death-looks. Seriously, under Darth Vader’s helmet, I bet he looked like Santana.

“He wanted to talk to the squad, but Coach wouldn’t let him,” Quinn said, carefully nibbling at an apple. “She said that she doesn’t trust a man who spends that much time on his hair.”

“Or course he spends ages on his hair,” Santana said, crossing her arms on the table. “He’s gay.”

“He is?”

“Oh yeah,” Santana said. “I’ve seen him around with his boyfriend.”

“You think everyone is gay,” I said.

“I never understood that,” Quinn said. “If he’s gay, then why doesn’t he dress better?”

“Have you seen how gay people dress?” Santana asked, eyeing Kurt off. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Whatever,” I said, sick of the topic. “Is it true that Lea dropped Karofsky?”

Quinn stared at me. “How did you only just hear of this?”

That got them distracted.

I thought about Mr Schue later. I mean, you hear comments and things, but who really knows what’s true? It’s like Kurt – everyone says he’s gay, but it’s not like anyone’s got any proof. It’s not like any of the guys let him get close enough to prove anything. Maybe it’s because people say stuff about me sometimes, but I really don’t think it’s anyone’s business. He was still my favourite teacher. How can you not like someone who lets you watch Harry Potter in Spanish, and then makes fun of the voices?

*

In many ways that should have been the end of it, but because I have some messed up kind of luck it really wasn’t.

Coach Tanaka wanted me to join the track team when the weather warmed up, so sometimes he called me out to run laps with the football team. I used to get shit for it. But I can keep up with the fastest guys, and Coach often points out that I have a better throwing arm than a lot of them. As Puck says, maybe if you spent less time bitching you’d also spend less time sucking.

Anyway, so when I got detention – which happened a lot more often than I told my mom, I’m not great at remembering to hand things up – I’d just go out to the field and do it with Coach Tanaka. Sometimes I’d do laps, or hold the pads for the smaller guys to crash into, or help pack up the obstacle course. If it was wet I’d do things like stack the towels in the guys’ change rooms and dump the stinky gym gear into the industrial washing machine they had down there. And while I’d do this kind of cleaning crap, well, sometimes I’d sing.

And one day while I was folding towels and stacking them on the shelves, Mr Schue came in to collect the signup sheet (which really wasn’t going to help him), and I stood there singing and making a dick of myself for about twenty minutes before I even noticed him. And when I did notice him, I got the fright of my life and almost fell over my own feet.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was just listening to you sing.”

“I don’t really sing,” I said awkwardly, picking up the towel that I’d dropped. “It’s more like yelling.”

“No, you’ve got a really good voice.”

No one had told me that before. Well, one person, one of my mom’s old boyfriends. He’d been great, and we used to sing along to the radio as I helped him fix our place up. But he left, and mom had been pissed so we didn’t really talk about him anymore. All of the people I knew who did singing lessons all did really girly stuff, like pop songs. I’m not a big fan of pop, and to be perfectly honest, my voice isn’t exactly girly. And now I had to go and embarrass myself by braying like a donkey in front of Mr Schue.

“You should join Glee,” he said. “We need a voice like yours.”

I went red. “Why? To make the other kids sound better?”

Mr Schue smiled. “No. It’s because you’re good. And because you look happy when you sing. So why not do something that makes you happy?”

I looked at his face, with his sweet honest smile and his bright green eyes, and I felt kind of mortified and something that could have been butterflies breeding in my stomach. “Um,” I said.

“Great! Our next rehearsal is Thursday, after school. Don’t be late.”

*

I didn’t tell anyone. I figured that I’d just ignore it, and forget about it, and I’d never even turn up so there’d be nothing to worry about. But then on Thursday I had Spanish, and Mr Schue had written “choir room, 3pm, don’t forget :D” on my homework, and when I looked up he smiled encouragingly at me. I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

So then my big plan was to go along, open my mouth, and when it was apparent that I sucked I’d just slink off. If anyone found out, I could just claim that it was a prank since Glee sucked and so did I. And it’s not like I’d be embarrassing myself in front of anyone who mattered.

My plan seemed to be going better than I thought, because when I stepped into the choir room everyone stopped and stared at me. And I mean stared in a bad way.

“You’re kidding, right?” Artie said. He didn’t look impressed. Maybe it had something to do with that time that Puck had spiked one of his tires. Or any of the things that Santana said to him.

“Come on, guys,” Mr Schue said. “Fiona has a great voice, and we should let her share that.”

“Mr Schue,” Kurt said, “if I could make a point?”

I sat next to the head cheerleader half the time, and the quarterback the other half. I was friends with the people who picked on people like Glee clubbers. While singing was a release and a reprieve – whatever that was – for everyone in Glee, it was one that I didn’t need.

Kurt thought that I was too cool to be in Glee. I mean, what?

“Santana puts Nair in my shampoo,” I blurted out. “Every couple of weeks, I swear. The only reason I’m not bald right now is because I smell everything before I use it.”

“Guys,” Mr Schue cut in, “Glee is not about popularity, or cliques. It’s about music. So unless any of you have a legitimate reason for Fiona not to join-”

“What about the time you tripped over in the cafeteria line and took out five people?” a black girl I’d seen around said.

“She’s right,” a girl with brown hair said. “Sorry, but you have to admit, you’re a walking disaster and dancing doesn’t strike me as some secret talent of yours.”

I looked at Mr Schue, and let the panic show on my face. “Dancing?”

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “You do sport, right?”

“I play basketball.”

The black girl crossed her arms over her chest. “Basketball ain’t hip hop, if you catch my drift.”

Mr Schue crossed his own arms in response. “How about we let Fiona audition for us, and then make up our minds?”

Everyone stared at me. Great. This wasn’t going to end badly at all.

*

In all honesty, I hate my voice. It doesn’t fit properly – it’s too deep too sing girl songs, and not deep enough to sing guy songs. So I guess it fits me perfectly, right? But even though I don’t like my voice, I love singing. I don’t even know why, I just get really sucked into the music, and sometimes a lyric will just hit me out of the blue and I’ll be all ‘ _ohhh_ , so that’s what that means!’. My mom tells me that I sound just like Karen Carpenter doing ACDC. Wouldn’t that be a cool concert? Admit it, you’d totally download the album.

But ACDC aside, there I was in front of a room full of people who I’d slushied, and tripped in the halls, and bumped into lockers (not exactly on purpose, I just take up a lot of room when I walk). And the stupid thing was, even though I didn’t like them, and they didn’t like me, and even though there was no reason for it since I didn’t want to join Glee anyway, I still wanted to impress them. I wanted to be good and to wipe that smile off of all their faces. So I tapped my fingertips against my leg, marking out a beat, and I took a deep breath, and I closed my eyes.

_“Livin' with my eyes closed, goin' day to day._  
I never knew the difference, I never cared either way.  
Lookin' for a reason, searchin' for a sign.  
Reachin' out with both hands, I gotta feel the kick inside.” 

I honestly don’t know why I chose ‘All Fired Up’. I’ve always liked it, and maybe sticking with my own gender was a good choice. I do love that song though. I love the way it builds, the way Pat’s voice changes over the chorus, it gets stronger and a little rougher somehow. I don’t know the words for it, but it’s great. It’s like the song reaches out and grabs you and pulls you along for the ride.

And even though I’m young and my voice shakes sometimes, I did my best. The first chorus was pathetic, but by the second I was into it. And maybe it was in my head or maybe not but there were voices singing with me. I still had my eyes closed.

_“Now I believe there comes a time,_  
When everything just falls in line.  
We live an' learn from our mistakes,  
The deepest cuts are healed by faith.” 

And by the end, yes. I don’t know how to describe it, that moment when you just hit it right, when it feels like you’re the only person there is and that’s the best thing ever and as the song comes out of you, you get filled up with the sound of how _yes_ it is.

And then it was over, and I was left a little short of breath and a little embarrassed. I opened one eyes slowly, checking out the room. The brunette had a critical look on her face, and there were a few nods and smiles. Kurt looked shocked. I rotated my head to one side, to look at Mr Schue. He was looking at everyone else with this big smile on his face, as if to say ‘See? I told you so.’

I guess I passed the audition.

*

I thought things were going to be cool – Glee was fun, and I have no idea why but we worked together, we just kind of clicked. And when I’d sang people had looked at me differently, like maybe there was some part of me that I didn’t need to cover up or should be embarrassed about. I was actually thinking that this was going to be great.

And then as I was walking down the front steps after practice, a hand shot out and grabbed my back pack, hauling me over to the bench by the parking lot and showing me down onto it.

“You can’t be serious,” Quinn said, standing in front of me with her hands on her hips. “You’re joining up with those losers?”

I’d been having the same thought since the talk with Mr Schue in the locker room, but now I had that tingle of something good flowing through me, and I wasn’t about to let her bring me down. “Why not?” I said defiantly. “I can’t join the football team. I can’t join the Cheerios. And what, now I can’t join Glee either?”

“Fee,” Quinn said firmly. “Your popularity is precarious as it is.”

“You know I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that if you don’t play things right, you’ll end up getting slushied in the halls and your books knocked over during class. And if it goes on for long enough, it could spread to the rest of us.”

The rest of her explanation remained unsaid, but I could hear it bouncing around in my head anyway: And if we start getting targeted, you’re on your own.

I stuck my jaw out in a sulk. “Hasn’t there ever been anything that you’ve wanted to do, but you were scared to do because of how it would make you look? Because maybe it wasn’t cool, or good for your rep?”

Quinn paused. “Yes,” she said finally. “Which is why I didn’t do it.”

I looked at her with big eyes. “But you _wanted_ to,” I stressed. “And don’t you wish that maybe sometimes you had?” Quinn looked away. “Let me try this,” I persisted. “Maybe it’ll suck and fine, things go back to normal. But maybe I’ll get a chance to do something that makes me feel good for a change. Instead of feeling like a freak.”

“If you join Glee, you’ll be a freak anyway,” Quinn said, picking her bag up.

I looked down at my too-big feet in their dirty sneakers. “Yeah, well, at least I’ll be in good company.”

Quinn hesitated, but I didn’t look up, and eventually she walked away.


	2. In which Glee is at the bottom of the social ladder, Puck is a jerk, and Fiona makes some friends.

My mom was pretty quick to pick up that something had happened. Which kind of annoys me, because I can try so hard to make sure she doesn’t worry, and then she goes and does it anyway. She works as a nurse at St Rita’s, so it’s her job to worry about people – she doesn’t need to worry more. When she’s on day shift she’ll get home around the time I’m finishing my homework (when I do it), and we’ll watch tv together, with her on the couch and me stretched out on the floor.

Since it’s just me and mom, we try to do stuff together a lot. I know she worries sometimes that I’m not turning out right – I know that my Aunt Cissie _definitely_ thinks I’m not turning out right. My dad had two brothers, and my mom had three, so I had a lot of people around when I was young to teach me how to play football and start a campfire (survival lessons were quickly banned in our house). 

Most of our family got out of Lima though. We take turns driving to the various cities my uncles are in for Christmas, and I always come back with a big bag of hand-me-down clothes. Last Christmas we went to Aunt Cissie and Uncle Dave in Cleveland, and she had a whole heap of stuff she’d bought for herself that didn’t fit for me. She’s about half my height, so I didn’t know how that happened – maybe she’d thought those shirts were dresses? But then I saw my cousin Matt (who _is_ my size) giving me a stink eye, and suddenly figured out how Cissie managed to get clothes that fit me. Haha, poor Matt.

Anyway, I bring this up because after the clothes incident, mom started paying more attention to me. I mean, paying more attention to girls my age, and how I’m not like them. She does her best to tell me that I’m fine the way I am and that I can be whoever I want – but I don’t know who I want to be. I don’t like being me, but I like pretending to be someone like Quinn even less. My mom knows what it’s like not to fit in, and how much it sucks. But she tells me that sometimes not fitting in is the best way to be.

Usually we put the whole issue in the too-hard basket, and watch true crime shows.

So while I tried to keep joining Glee and the fight with Quinn to myself, it soon came all pouring out.

“Oh honey,” she said, and hugged me. Then she said, “You should do this.” And I figured that was all I needed. I mean, how bad could things get just because I joined a dumb little club?

*

To be honest, not that bad. Rachel Berry got slushied twice during the week, but that was normal. Kurt’s car got peed on by most of the football team, but in all honesty, I think guys will pee on anything. Quinn watched me a little more, waiting to see if I was going to sprout braces and acne and go sit with the AV club during lunch. But I didn’t. For a while things were normal. Santana was bitchy – Puck and her had broken up, again – Brittany spent more time drawing flowers on her nails than talking to people, I was always too quick with my mouth and too slow with gossip, and Quinn watched over us all.

And inside Glee, well, things were great. Mr Schue had us all doing our own thing. Rachel had some solo she’d won a competition with when she was nine that needed dusting off, and Mercedes could bring the roof down on her own. Artie and Tina had a cute little song that Mr Schue had given them that they traded back and forth, like a round. And me and Kurt? 

We were doing  ‘Call Me’, by Blondie.

I’ll say this for Kurt, he knows how to fill space. Mr Schue was always telling me to stop hiding behind him (like that would work – he comes up to my shoulder, tops), to get out there more. Kurt got around the problem by grabbing me by the wrist and trying to fling me around. When that didn’t work, he flung himself around and it was my job to stop him toppling over. Maybe my dancing got a little better, but we kept laughing so much I don’t think we got through the whole song once. 

The only downside was when practices ended early. Mr Schue would get a phone call, and he’d have to go. Sometimes he got Ms Pillsbury to come and supervise us. “Are you sure you need to go?” she asked him once. “You don’t need to run off and play the white knight all the time.”

Mr Schue had given her a tight smile, and left anyway.

*

“So how’s Geek?” Puck asked as we walked home.

“I’m serious, you call it that one more time and I’m punching you.”

“I’m so scared,” Puck replied, pulling a face. “You punch like a- hey! Ow.”

I smirked at him. “And for your information, Glee is great. You should come along some time.”

“Oh yeah? And why would I want to do that?”

I rolled my eyes. “Because you’re good? I don’t know. You always like jamming with me. If you came to Glee, we’d have enough people to have a whole band, and then some.”

“Yeah,” Puck agreed. “But those left over aren’t even hot enough to make good groupies. _Ow_. Would you quit that?”

“I’ll quit hitting you when you stop saying stupid things.”

“That wasn’t stupid,” Puck replied. “That was plain old fact.” He skipped out of my reach, and smirked back at me. “For real though, why do you like it so much?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s fun. We sing, and we act like dorks, and no one cares if we suck – except Rachel. And the cool thing is that we don’t suck.”

“Yeah, well,” Puck leered at me. “You know that when you do start sucking, I want to be the first to know.” I tried to hit him again, but he danced away at the last moment. “You’ve got some anger management issues,” he said with a grin. “Seriously, Finn. You know that you’re going to end up shoved in a locker, right?”

“It’s not like I’d fit.”

Puck stopped walking, a dead serious look on his face. “I mean it. I don’t want... I mean, you could get hurt or something.”

“Last time I looked, you were the one doing most of the hurting,” I replied, a little coolly. I’m no Quinn Fabray, but I can let someone know when I’m getting annoyed.

“Yeah,” Puck said, staring me in the eye. “And you notice that I don’t get beat up on anymore? Being nice to those losers doesn’t make you a good person, it makes you one of them. And you don’t want to be one of them.”

“Oh?” I said, my face getting hot. “And why not? Because, what, being one of you guys is so good? Because I’ve _ever_ been one of the guys with those jerks you hang around with?”

“You’re not a guy!” Puck yelled back. “And don’t diss on my team.”

“I can’t diss on your team, but you can talk to _me_ like that?” I loomed over him, and Puck took a step back. “I don’t need you to tell me what I do and don’t want,” I said, jabbing him in the chest. “I don’t need you looking after me. And I sure as hell don’t need your attitude!” I gave him a final shove, and then turned, sprinting down the road.

“Yeah, well, FINE!” he yelled after me. I held my arm out to my side, flipping him off, but I didn’t turn around.

He was such a jerk.

*

“You need to sit with the boys today,” Brittany told me as we settled in to math. “Santana wants to get back with Puck.”

“Then why doesn’t _she_ go and sit with the boys then?”

Brittany gave me a long, empty look. “She doesn’t want to look weird, like you. Duh.”

“Yeah, well, she’s a big girl. She can talk to that loser all by herself.” I sank down low in my seat, before we could get told off for talking. I was still angry at Puck. I was now angry at Santana. I was even angry at Brittany, which isn’t really fair because it’s not like she thinks before she opens her mouth.

I fumed through the morning, even through Spanish. I was so busy being angry that I didn’t hear Mr Schue call on me, and when he finally got my attention I just snapped “I don’t know,” at him. He gave me that look that my mom sometimes gets – kind of angry, but disappointed underneath, and I felt a million times worse.

I was dreading lunch – dealing with Santana, dealing with Puck. It felt like I was always the one to deal with people. How come no one ever had to deal with my attitude? And then I spotted Kurt ahead of me in the lunch line – hard to miss, since he was wearing skin tight black jeans, a corset, and possibly the world’s brightest yellow cardigan. People kept glancing at him, and sniggering. I could see why – I wouldn’t be seen dead in that. And yet...

And yet...

There were a lot of things I wouldn’t dare be seen doing. Things I was too scared to do. And you know what? Being scared fucking _sucks_.

So I picked up my lunch tray, walked past the table of rowdy footballers, walked past the table of prim cheerleaders, and all the way over to the odd little table at the end of the row.

“Hi, guys,” I said as I sat down.

They stared at me.

“Okay,” I said, “I _know_ I don’t have food on my face. Yet.”

Kurt shook his head. “You never sit with us.”

“I sit with you in Spanish,” I said. “And Mercedes, I’m behind you in math.”

Mercedes gave me the most unimpressed look on the planet. “You and bimbo-head throw spit balls at me.”

I shrugged. “We throw spit balls at everyone. Usually we’re aiming at the stinky kind in front of you. But your hair keeps getting in the way.”

Mercedes’ look didn’t falter. “You throw spit balls at us, and now you’re sitting with us?”

I nodded, biting the end off a French fry. “Pretty much.”

Kurt, Mercedes, Tina and Artie all exchanged looks.

Tina shrugged at last. “Stranger things have h-happened.”

And they relaxed a little after that. They talked about music, a lot. Mercedes and Kurt got into an argument about whether Christina was over it - the interesting thing being that they both agreed that she was, yet kept arguing anyway. Tina and Artie talked about which musical they should rent next, with Kurt and Mercedes breaking away from their own conversation every now and then to make a suggestion. It was so fluid, so natural, and I realised that I hadn’t had a conversation like it since me, Puck, and my cousin Matt had argued about who the coolest member of KISS was while watching the Super Bowl when I was ten.

Artie noticed that I was staring. “What?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Did one of us grow another head or something?”

“It better not be me,” Kurt replied. “It would throw off the balance of all of my outfits, and I simply don’t have the time for two moisturising rituals per evening.”

“I’ll take it,” Tina said. “I think an extra head would be cool. One head could do the school stuff, and the other head could be reading comics.”

“Uh, sorry,” I said to Tina. “No new heads. It’s just... I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”

Now it was their turn to stare.

“You don’t know who Christina is?”

“You’ve never seen _‘Rent’_?”

“Or _‘Westside Story’_?”

“Or _‘Wicked’_?”

“Or _‘Repo’_?”

Mercedes tore her eyes away, to give Tina a look. “Girl, _no one_ has seen that creepy-ass gothic mess.”

Tina gave Mercedes a pleading look. “But it has Giles from _‘Buffy’_ in it! Using a dead guy as a Muppet! How can you not understand that this is the greatest thing ever?”

“You’ve never seen _‘Wicked’_?” Kurt repeated, looking aghast.

“I’ve never even heard of it. Or any of the other stuff.”

“Okay,” Kurt said primly, clapping his hands together. “We have a Glee club emergency. We need to perform a musical makeover on Fiona, _stat_.”

“I’ve got my iPod,” Tina said, digging in her bag.

“And I’ve always got mine,” Mercedes added, trying to untangle headphones from her necklaces.

Artie pulled his laptop out from under his wheelchair. “I can download your libraries, and then transfer them over, along with mine.” He looked up at me and grinned. “I hope you like jazz.”

“I, uh. I don’t have an mp3 player,” I said, stooping down a little.

“It’s okay,” Kurt said, holding his hands up and silencing the three open mouths. “This isn’t an emergency, you can borrow my back up until we find you something more permanent.”

He dug out a slim little thing that was purple. It had stickers of My Little Ponies all over it, and one of Iron Man.

“How can you _live_ without an iPod?” Mercedes asked.

I shrugged. “I got an X-box for Christmas instead.”

Mercedes clearly didn’t think this was a good explanation. “Girl, are you for real?”

I shrugged again. “Call me Finn,” I said at last. 

They all stared at me, but Tina gave me a bright smile. “Sure. But only if you call me the Countess De Cohen.”

“And only if you listen to every song on this compilation _at least_ once. Three times for the _‘Wicked’_ tracks,” Kurt added.

“I’ll do my best,” I said solemnly.

“Since we’re picking out nicknames,” Mercedes said, “I demand to be called The Diva, Mercedes.”

Artie grinned. “I call GQMF.”

Kurt neatened his fringe. “I guess that leaves me as the HBIC.”

Mercedes snorted. “Good luck breaking the news to Rachel.”

I looked back and forth between them. “I _still_ don’t know what you’re talking about.”

So that’s how we passed lunch. Them talking over each other in an effort to explain who artists were, what musicals were about, how to use the tiny little iPod that felt like it would break in my hands.

“Scroll,” Kurt kept saying to me. “Scroll, no, you have to go _around_ the wheel.”

Mercedes shook her head. “This is honest to God tragic.”

I replied before I could stop myself. “Tragic like your _face_.”

Mercedes stared at me for a long moment before countering with, “I think you mean, tragic like _yo’ momma’s_ face.”

“Did you just insult my mom?”

Mercedes smiled sweetly at me. “Hey, you talk me down again, I won’t just insult your mom, I’ll cut your face.”

I smiled back, narrowing my eyes. “Yeah, well, if you insult my mom again, I’ll cut your hair off.”

“You insult _my_ mom, and I’m gonna cut you into pieces, and feed you to the dogs.”

“You insult _my_ mom, I’m gonna peel your face of, cut it into chunks, mix it with your hair, tell the hockey team that it’s a new kind of steroid, and feed you to _them_.”

Mercedes tried to glare at me, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face, and ended up bursting out laughing. “Okay,” she said at last. “You’re good at this.”

Lunch ended just like it always did, and we stood together in a loud, laughing group. When I turned around to sling my bag over my shoulder I caught Puck giving me a dark look, before turning his head away. I looked over to my other table, where Quinn was outright glaring at me. I wondered if she’d been doing that all lunch, or waited until I turned around. I ignored both of them. Tina and Artie had French next, which was right next to my History class with Kurt. We walked Mercedes to English, and then chatted while Tina got her books out of her locker. I leaned against the cool metal, with Artie next to me and Kurt on Tina’s other side. Tina was asking me about horror games, and Artie was talking about tower defence games, and I was trying to explain that, no, Halo was clearly where it was all at.

And then Kurt’s eyes widened in fear. 

I turned around and saw Karofsky walking down the hall, taking loudly and being his usual jerky-self. Puck and Azimo, and Mike were with him. I guess that Matt was probably behind them, hidden by Karofsky’s bulk. At first I didn’t get it. I mean, big guys roam the halls at McKinely all the time. Heck, sometimes I even blend in with them. Then I looked lower.

He was holding a slushie.

Oh god. Just when the day started to get good. I could see immediately how it would unfold. Karofsky’s gaze locked on Kurt, Kurt clutching his cardigan (angora, he’d told me over lunch), Tina turning slowly with her eyes wide. She’d get side splatter, I knew, and I felt terrible.

Karofsky was pulling his arm back, that mean, jerk smile on his face, and over his shoulder I could see Puck looking at him. His face was closed, but damn it, I knew Puck. So, right when the slushie was sloshing forward, towards the lip of the cup, I reached out and smacked Karofsky’s fingers where they wrapped around the cup.

It wasn’t epic, it wasn’t full on facial degradation, but he did end up with ice and corn syrup down his front.

“Fuck man,” I said over his angry cry. “Are you clumsy today, or what?”

“Zing!” Artie added.

And when Karofsky looked up at me I swear for a minute I thought I’d end up stuffed in a locker, whether I’d fit or not, but all I got was the closest he got to wit – “Dumb bitch,” – and then Puck was dragging him off down the hall, saying loudly, “What the hell, man, you got Parkinson’s or something?”

I let out a long sigh, and when I turned back to the guys, Tina was staring at me with wide eyes. “That was _s-s-so_ cool,” she said.

“You stood up to them, and didn’t die,” Artie added admirably.

Kurt went straight to the point, putting the back of his hand to his brow, and pretending to swoon against me. “My hero,” he said breathlessly, and suddenly we were laughing again.

This was honestly the most fun I’d had at school since girls and boys got split up for PE.

Of course, it didn’t occur to me then that I’d pay for it. And pay for it _hard_.


	3. In which the Glee club gets picked on, Quinn stakes a claim on Fiona, and Rachel comes up with a plan.

It started small, “lezbeen” scrawled across my locker in marker. Heck, “dumb bitch” got under my skin more than that. I slammed my locker closed, and nearly jumped out of my skin – Rachel had been hiding behind the open door.

“Jeeze,” I said. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“Sorry,” she said. She was holding her books to her chest, looking a little scared. I’d never noticed before, because she was so bossy all of the time, but she was also kind of small. Compared to me, anyway. She took a deep breath. “Anyway, I was just thinking that,” and here she looked me in the eye, “that since Mr Schue seems to think that you’re the second lead for Glee, you need to start practicing more. I mean, your voice has a unique quality, and you have some natural ability, but that’s not the same as having natural talent, and it’s obvious that you haven’t been trained.”

She took in my blank stare.

“I’m offering to train you. During lunch, in the auditorium. We’ll start today.”

“Okay,” I said, and she gave me the brightest smile I’d ever seen, and then brushed past me.

“Please tell me that you aren’t seriously hanging out with Man Hands now.”

I sighed. “Hi, Quinn. I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”

Quinn gave me a smile she didn’t mean. “Cute. And it’s past time that some part of you was cute.” She glared at my locker. “It’s not smart for you to align yourself with Glee. This hazing is only going to get worse, and it’s not like the club is going to last.”

I blinked. “Wait, what?”

Quinn smiled again, the mean one this time, the one she always meant. “Well, the whole point of show choir is that you compete.”

“Compete?”

“And to do that, you need twelve members. If you don’t have enough, then there’s no point. And if there’s no point, the program gets cut. And Mr Schuester is certainly too distracted to fight for the club.” She smiled that perfect smile, and fluttered her eyelashes. “So, if you insist on being in Glee, make sure you enjoy it while you can.” After that she sauntered off, the crowds parting for her, in her cute little red uniform. At the end of the hall, Santana and Brittany peeled off and joined her.

And I was left staring after them, alone.

*

I went through the day in a daze. Glee ending? But it had hardly begun. I’d only been in it for a week, but already so much had changed. Would we still hang out? Would I still get to walk into school with Mercedes and Tina, doing runs slightly out of key? The answer was no.

Rachel put up with my sulking at first, but eventually she slapped her hand down on the lid of the piano. “Look,” she said sharply, “if Glee just isn’t that important to you, we can stop wasting my time right now.”

“It is important,” I shot back, “that’s _why_ I can’t pay attention.”

“That makes no sense!”

And then everything came pouring out. Rachel listened with wide, startled eyes, and then sank down onto the piano bench. “Oh,” she said.

“Yeah.” I sat down next to her. “Do you think it’s true? I mean, maybe Quinn was just stirring me up?”

Rachel shook her head. “No, you do need twelve members to compete. And all of the budget in this school is going to the Cheerios.” She looked down at her hands, and instead of the loud, bossy voice I was used to, when she spoke she sounded a little scared. “I guess I was silly for not realising sooner.”

“Realising what?”

“That I was getting my hopes up for nothing.” Rachel sniffed, and wiped at her face. She was crying, and I hadn’t even noticed. “I thought that maybe being in Glee would make me important, would help me get somewhere.” Tears were pouring now, and because I didn’t know what else to do, I put my arm around her.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, we’ve got six people, that’s... half. And heaps of people love music, we’ve just gotta convince them. And if we have a whole team, and we can compete, then Mr Schue will have to pay attention, right?”

Rachel sniffed, leaning into my side. “Great. Where are we going to find six other people – six other _good_ people – in this school?”

“I thought you wanted to be important?” I said to her. “Well, now’s your chance.”

She laughed, and wrapped her arms around me in a hug, and I rested my chin on her head.

“Okay, Fiona” she said, standing up and straightening her clothes. She looked me in the eye, strong and determined and bossy all over again. “Let’s start from the top.”

I couldn’t help but smile at the change in her. “Call me Finn.”

*

“Maybe we could call an emergency Glee club meeting after school?” Rachel said, as we left the auditorium. “The faster we move on this-”

“Fee!” Quinn called out. She ran over, and looped my arm through hers, the way I often saw Cheerios line up. “Are you still coming to the Chastity Club tonight?”

“I- what?”

“The Chastity Club,” Quinn said meaningfully. “You’ve been promising to come for weeks and, given the amount of _attention_ you’ve been attracting lately...”

“I, uh, right,” I said. “Of course.”

Rachel stood beside us, her hands on her hips. “But what about Glee?”

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. “Maybe after?” I tried. Rachel narrowed her eyes at me, but then she smiled.

“We’ll see,” she said. And I was suddenly very worried.

Quinn dragged me off forcibly. “Now,” she said. “Maybe I can find some lip gloss for you before the meeting.”

“Lip gloss?” I asked. “Why do I need lip gloss?”

“For when we pair up with the boys after, silly,” she said.

Oh dear.

*

Chastity Club was possibly the most boring half hour of my life, followed by an awkward 30 seconds when Jacob Israel realised that his eyes were pretty much the same height of my boobs, and commented “Wow, this makes my life so much easier.” One pair of broken glasses later and I was given permission to sit out of the Chastity Cuddle.

“Well,” Quinn said as we walked to her car. “That could have gone worse.”

“He was a jerk,” I said.

“Yes, but we don’t beat up jerks,” Quinn said in her educational voice. “We train them. We control them. Being surrounded by jerks can make your life easier, you just need to learn a little delicacy.”

I looked over at Quinn. “Yeah, well, maybe you need to learn how to throw a punch sometime.”

Quinn smiled over at me. “Why? I’ve got you around to be my bodyguard.”

“Oh really?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, slinging her bag into her car. “Just think, when prom comes around I’m going to have boys queuing up to be rejected by me. I’m going to need you around to keep the peace.”

“Letting me clean up after you? How generous.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Quinn said. “Your birthday’s coming up. How about we go shopping?”

I stared at her. We’d never hung out outside of school before. “I don’t really shop all that much.”

“It’s okay,” Quinn said. “I’m an expert. Come on, I’ll buy you a nice top or something for your birthday, and we can look at dresses for the dance.”

“The dance is forever away,” I replied.

“That’s why we’ll be looking, not buying.” She gave me a warm smile. “Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun.

I smiled back. “Alright.” I saw something waving at me over Quinn’s shoulder. It was Rachel, at the other side of the parking lot.

“Do you need a lift home?” Quinn asked.

“No,” I said, dragging my eyes back to her. “I need to go to the library first. I’ll see you tomorrow.” We said our goodbyes, and I sprinted over to Rachel.

“Come on,” she said. “Mercedes has a dentist appointment in twenty minutes.”

They were camped out just around the corner of the building, Kurt sitting primly on a bench, and Tina stretching her legs out into the sun.

“Hey guys,” I said.

“You won’t believe what she’s come up with,” Mercedes said flatly.

Rachel laid out her plan. Essentially, we were supposed to get up in front of the whole school, and be so awesome that they couldn’t help but grooving along.

“She’s going to get us killed,” Kurt informed me. I kind of agreed.

Rachel then added that the trick would be making Mr Schue think that it was _his_ idea, increasing his investment in the performance and the club. “We don’t have to convince everyone,” Rachel said. “We just need something that will appeal to six people. Something that can make a handful of people think that Glee is cool and fun.”

“We’d have more success putting on a strip show,” Mercedes said.

“You’d get the whole football team showing up,” Kurt agreed.

I dug Kurt’s Pinkie Pie/Tony Stark iPod out of my pocket, and scrolled through it.

“Could you be a little more constructive?” Rachel asked, hands on her hips. “We want a winning performance, not a sex show.”

I went through the Christina Aguilera tracks, and stopped at the perfect one. “Why not do both?”

*

“Are you guys sure about this?” Mr Schue asked as we lined up in front of him. “I mean, we haven’t really got anything that’s ready, and there’s not really any option to perform around school, unless you want to do it at an assembly.”

“Perfect,” Artie said.

“An assembly is a g-great idea,” Tina said, only sounding a little rehearsed.

Rachel stepped forwards, acting as our spokesperson. “Mr Schue,” she began. “We love Glee, and we want it to be the best it can be, because that will mean that we are being the best that we can be as performers. And we’re not going to get any better shut up in this room. We want to perform, and we want to compete.”

“And to compete,” Kurt added, “we need more members.”

“And if we want more recruits,” I said, “we need to perform.”

Mr Schue gave us all a long look. He had a habit of playing with his phone when he was thinking, sliding it open and shut. “Alright,” he said eventually, slipping his phone into his back pocket. His face split into a grin. “Alright, let’s get moving on this. Do you guys know what you want to perform?”

“We’ve got a song all lined up,” Rachel said, smiling primly.

This was going to be the hard part, convincing Mr Schue. But then his phone rang. He rolled his eyes. “Sorry guys, I have to take this. Fiona, you’re in charge until I get back.”

For some reason, people seem to think that because I’m tall, I’m also responsible. But I still felt a little thrill. Mr Schue thought I was mature. He was around a little more after that, coming back after the phone call, for once. We ran through scales, and warm ups, and he even got us doing a short dance number as a warm up.

“Wow,” I said, watching him move. “You’re really good at this.” He smiled and waved the compliment off, but Tina picked right up where I left off.

“You need to t-teach us some harder s-stuff,” she said.

“You really don’t,” I replied. “I’m struggling with this as it is.”

“Do you know any street dancing?” Tina asked. “Because that stuff is so c-c-cool.”

“Yeah,” Mercedes said. “We need to dance like they do in film clips.”

So that’s where our practices went. Rachel would herd us together to practice the singing in private, while Mr Schue taught us (or tried to teach us) how to move to the music. Of everyone, I sucked the hardest. I mean, even Artie was a better dancer than I was. How lame is that? So while the others got to get their groove on, Mr Schue took to dragging me off to one side, showing me over and over again how to move my hips, or how to make my movements loose and easy like his.

“The trick is to get the steps in your head,” he told me. “Once they’re in there, you can think about them less and focus on staying in time with the music.”

He’d stand behind me, his hands on my hips, saying “Now step and sliiide,” and moving me in time with the music. It got to the point that, whenever I danced, I’d hear his voice in my head, counting out the steps. And as embarrassing as it was being a worse dancer than the wheelchair kid, I didn’t mind too much.

I liked the way he touched me.

*

“So, guys,” Mr Schue said as we lay flopped down and panting after a rehearsal. “When am I going to hear this song you’ve been working on?”

“Tomorrow morning,” Rachel said brightly.

Mr Schue’s face fell. “At the assembly?”

“Too tired,” Mercedes said, pausing to chug from the world’s most pimped out water bottle. “Can’t sing.”

“It’ll b-b-be a surprise,” Tina said, smiling encouragingly. I may look responsible, but Tina looked convincing, and Rachel looked unmoveable.

“We wanted to show you how committed we were to putting a performance together,” Rachel told him.

Mr Schue looked unhappy with the situation, as we pretty much expected. “Guys, I’m really not comfortable with this.”

“It’s a song that everybody knows,” I said. “I mean, it’s an old song. From a musical.” I tried to look innocent and mature.

Kurt backed me up. “And I can assure you, we have the song _down_.”

“What about the other stuff? Do you need costumes?”

Rachel shook her head. “We’re wearing gym pants and t-shirts. There’s a lot of dancing, and we want to be comfortable during our first performance.”

Mr Schue looked us over. “Look, I’m sure it’s great and all, but I really-”

“Awesome,” I said, cutting him off. “Then we’ll see you tomorrow!” And we nearly tripped over ourselves getting out of there so fast.

Mr Schue caught my arm as I passed him. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?” he asked, looking at me with big, worried, green eyes.

I swallowed nervously. “Is making a fool of yourself stupid?” I asked.

“No,” he said, letting me go. “It’s part of life.”

“Then no,” I said, heading for the door. “Nothing stupid.”

*

That night I dreamed about Mr Schue, about him catching my arm, and then putting a hand on my hip and pulling me close. I woke up feeling hot, and out of breath. What an omen for our performance.

I was too nervous to think about omens though. We scurried into the hall in our gym gear and big baggy jumpers, which we stripped off once we were out of sight. We were wearing t-shirts underneath, so we hadn’t exactly lied to Mr Schue. But, well. Do you have any idea how skimpy you can make a t-shirt? And Mercedes and Tina had gone all out with this. There were sleeves cut off, and necks widened, and big slits cut through them, letting skin be hidden and then flash through in turns when we danced. Kurt’s shirt had whole panels cut out, which he’d then laced up again with black ribbon. They’d cut the top inch off my own shirt, so that it sat down low on my shoulders, leaving my collar bones showing. I looked over us all, stopping when I got to Mercedes.

“Hey,” I said. “How come you got to wear pants?” The rule had been boys in black gym pants, girls in gym shorts.

Mercedes tossed her wild hair over one shoulder. “I decided that since we were being daring enough today, I could afford to break one of Our Leader On High’s little rules too.”

I looked over to Tina. “Is that a whip?”

She nodded. “It’s a riding crop. I brought it in for Kurt.”

Kurt took the crop, and flexed it in his hands. “Oh yeah,” he said. “This is exactly what I need.”

We heard Principal Figgins introducing us, and scurried into position. My heart was beating wildly as Mercedes started the opening chant, _“Where’s all mah soul sistas, Lemme hear ya’ll flow sistas”_. And then the music stated up, an unused track on one of Rachel’s many albums of backing music. Even before Kurt and Tina started chanting the opening lines – _“Hey sista, go sista, soul sista, flow sista,”_ – everyone knew what the song was.

Rachel stepped forwards, the first of us to break out into song. _“He met Marmalade down in old Moulin Rouge, Struttin’ her stuff on the street.”_ I didn’t look out into the audience, I just did my best to keep in time with the moves. I bet you don’t realise it, since the clip is mostly set in bedrooms and things, but there’s a [‘Lady Marmalade’](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KYkKlB_wAk) dance, and we were doing it in the background, with a few modifications. With a lot more grinding. Rachel finished, and folded back into the group, which meant it was the chorus. And after the chorus, it was my turn.

I closed my eyes and stepped forwards. _“He sat in her boudoir while she freshened up. Boy drank all that Magnolia wine.”_ Mr Schue had been right, the steps were in my head, and now I could focus on the song. In my head, he was up on stage, right behind me, guiding my movements. I risked a look out into the audience, from under my lashes. _“On her black satin sheets is where he started to freak, yeah.”_

I thought about Mr Schue, and my dream. Of him being so close and smelling so good, and when it came to my runs for the chorus, I just cut loose, let my voice go where is needed to, where the wave of my body was telling it too. I wiggled my hips in a slow, improvised shimmy as we poured our hearts out over the words, “ _Voulez vous coucher avec moi, ce soir_ ”. And then I fell back into line, loose and energetic now that the hard part (for me) was over.

I’ll say this for Kurt, as small and skinny as he might be, he’s got an awful lot of music and power in him. He’d learnt his R’n’B lines, and while we were all dancing in time and spinning around behind him, he strode up and down the stage, pausing with his legs spread wide and his hips jutted out, pressing the length of the crop in that little crease where leg becomes body. His voice was low, and confident, and almost sultry as he said, _“We independent women, some mistake us for whores. I'm sayin’, why spend mine when I can spend yours?”_

And then Mercedes stepped up to the plate, none of Kurt’s attempts at sexiness, but all confidence and sheer vocal power. No one could do the crazy, vibrato rocked roars of Christina like she could. _“Touch of her skin feeling silky smooth,”_ She sang, running her hands up over her arms, twisting her hips. _“Color of cafe au lait, alright.”_

Then I was trading lines with Mercedes. _“Now he's back home doin' 9 to 5,”_ I sang.

Rachel made a show of cutting between us, rubbing up against us both, with the line, _“Livin' a grey flannel life.”_

Mercedes shoved her out of the way, and I caught Rachel’s arm like we’d rehearsed, swinging her around. _“But when he turns off to sleep memories creep, more-more-more.”_

Then we were back in line for the chorus, Artie rolling along in front of us singing the equivalent of Misdemeanor ’s lines, stopping in front of each of us in turn, saying our name, and then executing a spin in his wheelchair as we sang a run of notes.

We finished in time with the music, striking our poses and standing there as still as statues in the silence that followed, covered in sweat, our costumes falling apart, and our hearts beating wildly.

And then the gymnasium erupted into applause, and I felt us all sigh in relief.


	4. In which the Glee kids get into trouble. A lot of trouble. And Kurt saves the day.

So, as I’m sure you can imagine, while our stunt went down well enough with the hormonal masses, it didn’t go down so well with Mr Schue. I think he was kind of proud of us. In fact, I think most people enjoyed it. It was just that Mr Schue got dragged in to battle it out with Figgins’ over how appropriate this club was, and Coach Sylvester was there, talking about female values and objectification, and it was decided that perhaps the morals of our little club needed to be pulled up out of the gutter, and gently purified.

So we were forced to join the Chastity Club.

“It’s a great idea, isn’t it?” Rachel whispered to me as we sat in a row at the desks at the back of the classroom. “Now we can really corral some more members.” I didn’t know how to tell her that I didn’t like her chances. That said, I think I was still better off and Artie and Kurt, who looked positively petrified when they were ushered off to go be manly for half an hour.

As it turned out, Chastity Club meant prancing around in skirts and talking about how silly boys were. I was glad Mercedes was there – we were the only ones wearing pants. And if it weren’t for the Glee girls, I’d be the only person in the room who hadn’t had a boyfriend. I had lip gloss on, though I kept eating it off, so maybe that was a start.

“Do they seriously do this every week?” Mercedes asked, watching Brittany and Santana dance around, flipping their skirts up.

Quinn looked over, and I felt the need to defend them. “Hey, if there were some music in the background, they’d probably look better than we do during Glee.”

Mercedes snorted. “Sure, if a practice ever lasted long enough for us to get out booties out.”

“I wonder why Mr Schue is so busy in the afternoons,” Tina asked.

Santana looked up, her eyes narrowed and her mouth smiling. “You mean you don’t _know_?” she asked.

“Know what?” Mercedes asked, getting some attitude out.

Santana out and out smirked. “He’s whipped. All it takes is one little phone call, and he drops what he’s doing and runs home to be a good little housewife.” The Cheerios giggled, eyeing us off.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rachel said.

“Really?” Quinn arched a perfect eyebrow at us. “I think it’s the other way around.”

I gnawed another layer of cherry gloss off my lips.

Quinn put her hand up to her mouth, pretending she’d said something naughty. “You mean, you don’t _know_ what Mr Schue’s been getting up to? Oh my.”

I stood up, pushing my seat back and placing my hands on the table, ready to leap it and shake her, but I was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Knock knock?” someone called.

“Who’s there?” Quinn called back, her hands on her hips.

“Puck,” the voice called back.

“Puck who?” Santana asked, skipping over to the door, and pulling it open.

“Pucker up!” Puck called, reaching through to grab Santana, smacking his lips at her. Quinn put her hand on the door, and slammed it on his shoulder. There were times when I legitimately liked her.

“Alright,” she said in a firm voice. “Now comes chastity practice.”

“Is she serious?” Mercedes asked.

Quinn started blowing up white balloons, and handing them around. “I think she’s serious,” Rachel replied.

“Hey,” I said. “Where’s Kurt? And Artie?”

The footballers exchanged looks, and snickered. Now I did vault over the table, shouldering my way through the room.

“I just want you all to know that I had no part in this,” Jacob Israel called after us. “Especially you, Rachel Berry!”

It didn’t take long to find them. They were in front of my locker. Kurt was tied in place on Artie’s lap with skipping ropes, they both were gagged, and had stained underpants pulled over their head. My locker, in fact, was covered in stained underpants. I stopped, rooted to the spot.

“Wow,” Rachel said beside me. “They really went all out.”

Tina rushed past me, and began de-panty-ing Kurt and Artie. The rest of us followed, untying them and trying to straighten them out.

“No luck recruiting?” Tina asked.

Kurt peered into Mercedes’ bling, trying to fix his hair. “You know, I always expected I’d get violated by a repressed football player eventually. But not like this.”

I stared at my locker. Big, ugly, grandma underpants had been glued all over it. All of them were stained, and all had my name scrawled on them. Fiona the Ogre. Loner Fiona. Fifi the performing dog. And I recognised some of the handwriting. And I had never been so angry in my entire life. I heard the clatter of feet in the hallway behind me, of laughing voices and cruel taunts. I turned around to face them, and my vision went red.

“You,” I hissed at Puck. He had his mouth open to say something smart, but I didn’t give him the chance. I was in his space and in his face, and I pulled my fist back and punched him like I’d never punched him before. Right on the kisser, making his head go back and pushing him back a foot, into Matt and Mike.

“What did I do?” he asked, brining his hand up to his mouth. “What you think I did that? You think you can _prove_ anything?”

“I can damn well get a confession out of you,” I hissed, and I was on him again, punching and hitting, and probably spitting like a wild cat. He shoved me off, but I kept coming at him.

“It’s your own damn fault,” he yelled at me. “What, you think you can get up on stage and dance around like that? Where everyone can see you? You think you can do that and have no one notice?”

He tried to grab me, but I slammed us into the lockers. “I was under the impression you _liked_ seeing that kind of thing,” I hissed in his face. “That’s why you stash the underwear section from the Walmart catalogue under your bed.”

“Yeah,” he said, shoving me off. “Well, I never wanted to see _you_ doing that.” I think I actually growled at him, ducking down and ramming my shoulder into his stomach and knocking the air out of him. There was a tight circle around us now, howling at me and taunting Puck. He got no help, his friends were laughing too hard at seeing Puck get his ass handed to him by and girl, and for some reason that made me even angrier.

He got a good hit to my ribs, but I got a kick to his knee. He grabbed my hair and shoved me away, but I grabbed his arm, and twisted and he ended up with his face pressed into a locker – into my apparent panties – and his arm twisted up behind his back. Thank you professional wrestling, for the submission holds you have gifted me with. I had a hand fisted in his stupid Mohawk, ready to slam his stupid face repeatedly into those crusty panties, when there was a “Hey!” yelled from down the hallway, and then a hand clapped down on my shoulder, pulling me off him.

It was Mr Schue. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” That question was directed at me. “What the hell is going on here?” Directed at everyone.

Puck struggled against Mr Schue’s grip on his shirt. “Get off of me, you damn faggot.”

And things went very quiet. Mr Schue’s grip on us loosened for a moment, out of shock I think, and I used the moment to grab Puck by the shoulders and use my knee to ram his balls up into his brain. Puck made a tight noise, doubled over, and slowly dropped to the floor.

“Well,” Kurt said drily. “You can’t say it wasn’t well deserved.”

Mr Schue tightened his grip on me. “Figgins,” he said. “Now. And would some of you guys pick him up?” Matt and Mike to the rescue. “Now, the rest of you, go home.” I was dragged, Puck was carried, and we were off to see the principal.

*

Getting sent to the principal’s office is pretty boring, all things considered. Our parents were called. We were both told off, though I don’t think Puck was thinking particularly well at the time, and I spent it staring at my knuckles, which were starting to bruise. Mr Schue stood with his arms crossed, looking so disappointed in me.

“How could you do that to my boys?” Puck asked, slumped in a chair outside Figgins’ office with an icepack held to his pants.

“How could you do that to _me_?” I asked, feeling that was slightly more relevant. The heat of our fight had worn off, leaving us cold and sore. I was still mad at him, but in a low, simmering way. I was too tired to be properly angry.

“Your mom’s not picking up,” the secretary said, looking at Puck. “Is there anyone else I can call?”

“I’ll take him home.” We looked over, to Quinn standing in the doorway. “I came to see how you both were.”

“Fine,” I replied gruffly.

“Never been better,” Puck added. He eased himself to his feet, and walked awkwardly after Quinn. I watched them go, my lip curling in distaste.

Mr Schue walked out of Figgins’ office, and crooked a finger at me. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

I sighed. “Sure.” I got the feeling a lot of people would be talking to me about this.

We moved out into the corridor, getting what little privacy there was. Mr Schue looked at me, and then sighed, running a hand through his hair. “What am I going to do with you?”

I looked down at my big, ugly shoes. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“I always thought that you were better than that, getting into fights, the whole assembly thing.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “It’s just,” I twisted my fingers together. What I meant to say was ‘he made me so mad’, but that wasn’t what came out. “He hurt me.” And then I felt absolutely worthless, because my eyes were getting red and itchy, and my throat was sore, and I was about to cry in front of a teacher.

Mr Schue sighed again, and wrapped an arm around me. “So,” he said gently. “Tell me about you and Puck.”

I told him about how we were friends since forever, and how we’d always been so close. And then suddenly high school happened and I didn’t know who he was any more, and I didn’t know who I was either, but at least I was trying to figure that out, and he kept stomping on it all, and everything was going to shit and I just didn’t know what to do. I started crying for real about twenty seconds in, and Mr Schue sat there, listening to it all, rubbing big circles on my back.

“You need to do what makes you feel good,” he said at last. “High school... it sucks, okay? Everyone knows that. And the people who tell you how great high school is or was must be clearly unbalanced.”

“People like you?” I asked.

I couldn’t see it, but I could tell he smiled at that. “I’ve had over a decade to repress and forget the bad parts. But I can remember getting beat up for a year after I joined Glee.”

I looked over at him. “Really?”

He nodded. “I was on the track team, and then switched. A lot of people didn’t understand – sport was how you got out of Lima. But Glee made me happy. It filled me up, made things better. And there was the bonus that we clearly rocked and were awesome. Just like you guys,” he added, making me smile.

“A lot of people tried to talk me out of that decision, but I did what made me happy. And then I went to university, and became an accountant because that’s what my dad wanted. And then I was so bored and hated my life so much I hoped that _anything_ would happen to get me out of there. So eventually I quit, and went back to college, and became a teacher. My dad still thinks that I made a mistake doing that – that I’ve made _a lot_ of mistakes – but being a teacher, getting to be part of the lives of amazing people like you, that’s what makes me happy.”

“I’m sorry about the ‘Lady Marmalade’ thing,” I said. “That probably wasn’t your favourite moment as a teacher.”

“It was a surprise,” he admitted. “But it let me know that I need to be spending more time with you kids, taking Glee seriously. And it let me know how talented and special you all are.”

I looked over at him again. “Really?”

“Really.” He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in for a quick hug, and I was glad that my face was already red from crying, or else I would have blushed. “You just need to find that thing that makes it all worthwhile. And you will. And the people that really love you, they’ll support you through it.” And then he stood up, and headed back in to Figgin’s office.

I turned to watch him go.

“You make me happy,” I whispered, and was immediately gad that he didn’t hear me.

*

Kurt rang me as soon as I was home. “You’re lucky there are only five Hudson’s in Lima,” Kurt said. “I really need to get your mobile number. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. I ran my hand through my hair, and when I lowered it there were a heap of loose strands stuck to my fingers. “I think Puck pulled half of my hair out, though.”

“What?! Oh Fiona, you have to come over so we can fix it.”

I shook my hand, trying to get the loose hair off. “Why? It’s just hair.”

“Honey,” Kurt said patiently, sounding more than a little like my mom. “You were just in a fight. More importantly, you just _won_ a fight. You need to walk into school tomorrow looking fearless, not like a Barbie someone decided to play hairdresser on.”

“Mooom?” I called from the kitchen. “Can I go over to Kurt’s? He wants to fix up my hair.”

My mom stuck her head into the kitchen, and I dragged my fingers through my hair again, dislodging a clump of dark hairs. I could see her weighing up the importance of discipline against the significance of me actually showing some interest in my appearance. I tried to look a little distraught.

“Alright,” she said. “But only if it’s fine with his parents, and only if they feed you.” I relayed the conditions to Kurt, and he relayed the okay back. I gave mom a thumbs up. “Fine, off you go. But don’t clean out their fridge.”

“What’s that about a fridge?” Kurt asked me.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll find out.”

*

Kurt lived in his dad’s basement, which I thought was incredibly cool. Where my room was small and dark and filled with dirty clothes and cowboys, Kurt’s was a big open space with white walls and black furniture. He had his own bathroom. He even had room for a couch – how cool is that? He sat me down, and experimentally ran his fine fingers through my hair. A little shower of loose hair rained down.

“Hmm,” he said. “He sure got you good. How about we just comb all this out, and then see how it looks?”

“Right,” I said. “It might not be so bad.”

Kurt got out a range of brushes and combs, and set to work. When he stepped back, I could tell by the look on his face that, yes, it was that bad. I peered past him, into the big round mirror that dominated one wall. I had a clear, almost-bald patch half an inch back from my hairline, above my left eye. The skin there was red and angry, and hurt when I poked it.

“First, let’s reduce that swelling,” Kurt said, getting ice from the bar fridge (did I mention that he had a fridge in his room? A little one, but still. Fridge!) and wrapping it in a towel.

“So,” I said while he was fussing around with that. I grasped at the first thing that came to mind. “You like Iron Man?”

“Tony Stark,” Kurt said with all seriousness, “is quite possibly my dream man. I plan to model my life after his as much as possible – the fantastic house, the expensive cars, the multi-national empire, the suits. Especially the suits. Except where his are masculine, mine are going to be fabulous. The alcoholism and bimbo girlfriends, I’ll probably leave.”

“What about the robots?” I asked. “Are you going to be an engineer?”

“Well, my dad’s a mechanic, so I guess it wouldn’t be that much of a step up. Of course, my ideal plan is to have an incredibly expensive, incredibly influential fashion empire.” He smiled at me. “But robots are also good.”

He eased the ice away, and we both stared at my head in the mirror. “If you had longer hair, this really wouldn’t be a problem,” he said.

“If I had longer hair, he would have been able to pull more of it out,” I replied, trying to hide my bald patch with the rest of my hair. “That’s why I have it short,” I said. “Basketball players have good grip.”

“Right,” Kurt said absently. “I keep forgetting that you play.”

I shrugged. “I like it. I mean, I’d like to play football or soccer or something. But there’s not a lot of girl’s sports going in Lima.”

“What about mixed sports?”

“Even less,” I replied glumly.

“Hmm,” Kurt said, though I had no idea if it was in response to our conversation, or my hair. “Alright,” he said. “I have a solution.” He turned and rummaged around in the drawers of his dressing table, eventually coming up with a handful of what looked like the off cuts from a troll doll factory. “Extensions,” he explained. “We’ll put some in around the patch, give your hair a little style to hide it, and then maybe put in a few streaks of colour here and there to give it a more modern look. What do you say?”

I looked at my face in the mirror. I have brown eyes, and hair that’s black indoors and dark brown in the sunlight. It’s always cut short, in a boy’s haircut, though it was growing out and stuck up in all directions. I have a long face, and freckles across a very plain nose from spending so much time outside. My mouth is a weird shape, with my bottom lip being so much fatter than my top lip. My eyebrows never sit level, so it always looks like I’m pulling a face. And now I had a patch of scalp the size of a quarter showing through.

What did I think?

I figured that anything that made me look less like myself was an improvement.

“Let’s do it,” I said.

Kurt went all out. I had some pinches of hair coated in bleach and wrapped in foil while he set about sorting the fake hair into different colours. “Now,” he said. “These all use the mini-link method. There’s no glue, no heat, no remover, and also no damage to the hair. Don’t worry about how, that’s my job. You just need to choose which colour you want.”

Kurt didn’t have anything even resembling my natural hair colour. He had light blue, white blonde, purple with sparkles, a brown that matched _his_ hair colour, and bright pink. “Well,” I said, looking them all over. “I sang Pink’s part at the assembly, so maybe we should go with that.”

Kurt picked the pink strands up and held them next to my face, examining them critically. His face split into a grin. “A perfect choice. This is going to look great.”

He let me choose the music while he fussed about with that I’m pretty sure was a crotchet hook, pulling the hair around my patch this way and that. “We’ll link in the hair around your patch, so it’s thicker there and hides the spot. Then all we have to do is give your hair a bit of a trim, a bit of style, colour your frosted tips, and – with the help of a little product – voila!”

He made it sound so simple. In reality, it took nearly an hour for him to get the extensions in, sitting on the dressing table with his legs either side of mine. They hung down past my chin, and I looked ridiculous. Then we took a break, and I helped him cook spaghetti for dinner. He put the radio on, and sang along to just about every song that came on, until ['Heat of the Moment'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfFjb3B9RRw) by Asia came on. I took over the singing, and showed him how it was done. We ate in front of his computer, as he showed me his favourite film clips.

“I can do the ['Single Ladies'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyHVQT8aIBM) dance from memory,” he told me.

“That’s amazing,” I said, staring at the screen, and he seemed pleased.

Then the foil came out, and we washed my hair in his big, black porcelain sink. “Never get a black bathroom,” he told me. “Keeping it clean is impossible, because the dirt is so hard to see”. Then came smearing pink gunk through my hair – though it didn’t look pink. Apparently hair dye never looks the colour it turns out. Kurt even rubbed it through the parts of my hair we weren’t colouring. “It’ll give the colour of your hair more texture,” he told me. I had no idea what that meant, but I went with it. He tried to teach me the _Single Ladies_ dance while we were waiting for the colour to sink in, but it was impossible. Fun, silly, hilarious even, but totally impossible.

He got me a Coke, and then it was time to sit still while he worked his styling magic. I don’t know a lot about hairdressing, but it seemed like he was cutting a lot off, little snips and little pieces of fluttering hair, but it was all adding up around my feet. Then he got out a razor and, to my alarm, began running it along little strips of hair, making me cringe.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “This is adding texture.”

“I thought the dye did that?”

“That was visual texture. This is style texture.”

I gave up.

When he finally, _finally_ put down the combs and scissors and clips, I thought I was free. But no, now came the actual styling. Pre-styling product, lifting and volumising product, styling product, holding product. It was a far cry from my old method of tugging any knots out with my fingers when I showered after gym.

Kurt was finally done. He stood up, looked down at me, and then stepped away with a dramatic flourish, letting me see my reflection. I almost didn’t recognise myself. It was... I want to say that it wasn’t me, but I really wanted it to be me, if that makes sense. The back was fluffed up, my fringe was styled thick and low, brushed to the left and over my forehead.

“It’s a little emo,” Kurt explained. “A little rock chick, a little girly-punk. I decided to model it after some of Pink’s styles, but when it grows out, you could go early-Kelly Osbourne.”

“It’s great,” I said. I didn’t have much else to say. I could stop staring at myself, reaching up to pet my hair, see if it still belonged to me.

“Now,” Kurt said. “While we have you here, we may as well complete the job.”

“What do you-?” And I didn’t get any further. Soon he had my eyebrows waxed, my pores cleansed, my lips exfoliated, and was cramming a small clutch bag full of various products.

“I don’t need these,” he explained. “But now you have moisturiser, cleanser, hair wax, mousse, a mascara I’ve never used – it came with an issue of Cosmo, and here,” he pulled a red tube out and showed it to me. “Pawpaw ointment.” He squeezed just a little out onto his finger, and parted his lips, waiting for me to copy him before rubbing it into my lips. “This is good for everything from chafing to burns to cracked skin to insect bites. My mom used it on me to prevent nappy rash.” He looked down at the tube, and smiled. “It’s essentially miracle goo. Use this instead of lip gloss, until your lips are properly conditioned.”

“Um, thanks,” I said as he shoved the bag into my arms. “Are you sure? I mean, I can’t really pay you back. It’s not like I have some clothes to give you, or...” I trailed off as I heard a door opening upstairs.

“Kurt?” a man called out. “You home?”

“Down here, dad!” Kurt called back.

A pair of feet in boots clomped down the stairs, followed by worn jeans, and eventually a jacket that looked plain and comfortable and kind of expensive. “Hey, did you- woah, sorry. I didn’t know you were down here with a guy.”

Kurt blinked, frozen in place on the dresser beside me.

“If it helps,” I said, standing up, “I’m actually a girl.”

And then it was Kurt’s dad’s turn to look caught out. His eyes were blue, and when he was startled I saw a glimpse of Kurt in his face. “Oh heck,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just, you know, from behind...”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It happens all the time. I promise.”

“We thought the pink might help with that,” Kurt finally said.

Kurt’s dad looked up at my hair. “It looks good,” he said. “Kinda like watsername. Joan Jett. I’m Burt Hummel, by the way,” he said, sticking his hand out.

“Finn, uh, Fiona Hudson,” I replied, shaking his hand. He had a warm hand, and a strong grip.

He looked back and forth between me and Kurt, raising an eyebrow at his son. “Well. I’ll just let you kids get back to it, shall I?”

“Thanks, dad,” Kurt said, all bright smiles and false bubbles. “That would be great.” Burt nodded at me again, and retreated to the safety of the main house.

“I like your dad,” I said, turning back to Kurt. “He’s nice.”

Kurt was still staring at the stairs leading out of the basement. “Finn. Fiona, I’ve thought of something that you could do to pay me back. If you want to, that is.” He took a deep breath, and look up into my face, his cheeks going pink. “Have you ever kissed a boy before?” he asked.

“No,” I said, a little puzzled. What did kissing have to do with-

“Do you want to?”

 _Oh_.

“I... do you want to?”

Kurt pressed his mouth closed, and nodded.

“I, uh. Okay. How did you want to... do this?” I was too tall for us to both stand, so he dragged me back over to the dresser, pushing me down onto the little stool. He sat on the very edge of the dresser, but it felt different this time. We were both conscious of how close we were, of what the closeness implied. He seemed to stop after that, run out of energy.

I raised a hand, and put it on his cheek like they do in movies. I leaned forwards, and let my eyes close. I paused when I could feel our noses touching, and looked at him again. His eyes were wide, and very blue, and his cheeks were very pink. Then he closed his eyes, squeezing them shut like he was trying to block everything out, and he pressed his mouth against mine.


	5. In which things get awkward, Mr Schue’s secret comes out (of the closet), and Puck tries his best.

So. My first, real kiss. It was nice, I guess. Kurt’s lips tasted like mango lip butter, and when I pressed forward and his mouth opened, his mouth tasted pretty much like mine. He shifted, so one of his legs was between mine, and we tried to get our heads at a good angle. I lifted a hand to touch his hair, but he caught my wrist and pushed my hand back down, so I rested it on his thigh instead. He put his hands on my shoulders, eventually shifting so they were clasped behind my neck.

To be honest though, it was all kind of awkward.

We sprang apart when we heard his door open again, and his father ducked down to peer under Kurt’s ceiling. He must have known _exactly_ what we were up to. “Sorry, guys,” he said, and he certainly looked sorry about catching us at it. “But I just realised the time. Do you need a ride home?”

“Uh, that would be great,” I said, standing up and grabbing my jacket.

Burt looked at Kurt. “Are you going to be the gentleman, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it,” Kurt said, standing up a little shakily. He tried to cover it by grabbing the bag full of what was now my stuff, and thrusting it at me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he told his dad.

“Great,” Burt said. “Could you grab some milk on the way home?” And then he left us to it.

“Sooo,” I said.

“Well,” Kurt contributed. And then we walked to his car in silence.

As if the day somehow weren’t eventful enough, we got the surprise of our lives on the way home. We were stopped at a red light. Kurt was so awkward that he didn’t even have any music playing. I was staring out the window of his car, at the front of a bar just level with us. The door opened, and a man staggered out, holding someone else up. I sat up straight.

“Is that Mr Schue?”

Kurt leant over, and peered into the dark. “I think it is,” he said.

We watched as the man Mr Schue was practically carrying out of the bar suddenly reached up, grabbed Mr Schue’s face, and planted a hot and heavy kiss on him, pressing Mr Schue back against the wall outside the bar. Kurt and I stared, our mouths hanging open, until the car behind us got sick of us sitting at a green light, and belted out a long blast on the horn.

We both jumped, and Kurt planted his foot, sending us screeching away from the lights.

“Did he see us?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Did we really see that?”

“I don’t know! Are you sure he didn’t see us?” We continued in that vein until Kurt pulled up outside my house. He put the parking brake on, and we dissolved into giggles. When we finally calmed down, things were feeling relaxed between us again.

“Soo,” I said again.

“About the kiss,” Kurt said. “I... I want to thank you, it meant a lot to me. But I really just...”

“Think we’re better as friends?” I offered.

“Yes.”

“Oh thank god,” I said, and then laughed. “I mean, not that it was terrible or anything. But could you imagine us as a couple?”

“I’d have to stand on a box just to kiss you,” Kurt said.

“I’d be dating someone prettier than me.”

“That’s always a no,” Kurt agreed. “Though, you brush up alright.”

I grinned back at Kurt. “You’re not so bad yourself.” I unbuckled the seatbelt, and climbed out of the car. “Thanks for fixing me up,” I said.

“And I even got you home by midnight,” Kurt said with a wink. “I’m the best fairy godmother ever.”

I laughed, and let the door slam closed. He waited until I had the front door open, and I waved to him as he drove off.

Mom was asleep in front of the tv. Which I guessed was good, because she was probably waiting up to give me the ‘what time do you think this is, young lady?’ speech. I pulled a blanket over her, and headed up to bed. I hadn’t noticed it until I got home, but I was exhausted.

*

I dreamt about Mr Schue again that night. In my dream I was dancing, and he was right behind me, moving in time. But he didn’t need to guide me this time, I knew what I was doing. I pressed back against him, reaching a hand behind my head to run my fingers through his tight curls as he wrapped his arms around my waist, his hands flat on my stomach, one sliding lower and lower.

I spun around, pressing my mouth against his and his hands tightened on my back, before moving around to my hips, grabbing hold and pressing me back against a rough brick wall, pressing his hips forwards against mine.

I woke up in a sweaty tangle, my brain half-asleep and my body wide awake. I remembered what I’d seen the night before. Right. Today was a day to get some answers.

*

People stared at me as I walked into school. I had no idea if it was the hair, or if word of my fight with Puck had gotten around. Probably both. When I got to my locker, I saw that it had been defaced yet again, but this time in a good way. The underpants were gone, though the paint was chipped and stripped in some places. The word “Lezbeen” had been changed so it read “haz been”, and around it someone had written “The nite haz been a blast!” The exclamation mark was dotted with a star, and there was an abundance of glitter on it. In one very small corner I could see “♥ Glee”.

My friends were awesome.

I dumped some books, and set off to find Quinn. She wasn’t at her locker down the hall, or out on the football field training. That pretty much just left Coach Sylverster’s office. I didn’t want to go down there, but I needed to talk to Quinn. I peered through the blinds of Coach’s office. Quinn was in there, sitting between Brittany and Santana. I had no idea how long they’d be, but since I didn’t have any classes with Quinn that morning, I decided to wait it out. The door finally opened, and Coach shooed them out. She stopped and glared when she saw me.

“What are you doing down here? Spying? Espionage?” She stepped right into my space, and shoved a finer in my face. “I could have you deported for invading my privacy and compromising America’s freedom.”

“I was just waiting for Quinn!” I said, cringing back into the wall.

Coach Sylvester looked me up and down. “Get out of here,” she said. “And get a real haircut.”

Quinn smiled at me, looking a little subdued, but she gestured with her head for me to follow her. “I think she likes you,” she said, leading me away.

“I think she’s terrifying,” I replied.

“She is,” Quinn agreed. She trailed off, looking around the school like she was thinking of something else.

“Hey, Quinn,” I said. “Can I ask you something?”

Quinn looked back at me, pasting her polite, friend-smile back on. “Of course,” she said.

“Could you tell me what’s going on with Mr Schue? What’s really going on?”

*

This was all told to Quinn by Coach Sylvester, who then told it to me.

Mr Schue had been engaged, to his high school sweetheart of all people. They were together for something like ten years, which is a long time, before he got his teaching degree and they decided to move back to Lima. When they were just settled in, he found out that she was cheating on him, with someone they’d both gone to school with. So he broke it off.

“Here’s where it gets really interesting,” Quinn said, leaning forwards. “This guy went around to Mr Schue’s place to apologise and patch things up, and then he ended up sleeping with Mr Schue as well.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s...”

“Scandalous?” Quinn offered. “It gets better.”

So Mr Schue and this guy got themselves into a rocky relationship, but they eventually moved in together, and had been living together for three years.

“No one knows why he puts up with him though,” Quinn said. “He sleeps around.”

My eyes widened. My only thought was that, if you had someone as cool as Mr Schue, why would you need anyone else? “Are you sure?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged. “That’s what coach Sylvester says. She says he’s worked through half of Lima. He’s even slept with most of the teachers here.”

“Wow,” I said again. “What a jerk. Does Mr Schue know?”

“He must know,” Quinn said. “There’s only so many times a guy comes home smelling of someone else’s perfume before you put two and two together.”

“But why would he stay with him if he knows?”

Quinn shrugged again, and looked away. “Coach says that he figures he probably deserves it. That if he wasn’t good enough for his wife to stay with him, then he’s probably not good enough for much else. That’s what she thinks, anyway.”

I thought back to the day before, to Mr Schue’s conversation about finding what you love, and about making mistakes. “The poor guy,” I said.

Quinn frowned, still looking out across the courtyard. “We all do things we regret,” she said. “And we all have to live with it.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I kept quiet until the bell rang. She looked at me as we picked up our bags, and smiled. “Your hair looks nice,” she said.

“Thanks,” I replied. “Did you want to go shopping this weekend?”

Quinn smiled, pulling herself back together. “Sure,” she said, looping our arms together again. “It’s a date.”

*

At lunch, there was no decision to make, I sat with the Glee club. Rachel even turned up and sat with us. “You were amazing,” she gushed. Then she actually stopped and looked at me. “Your hair!”

“Yeah,” I said, trying to be casual. “After the fight I went out for ice cream and then hit the beauty salon.”

Tina pulled at a blue stand of her own hair. “We’re like opposites,” she said. “You’re pink and short, I’m blue and long.” I bent down and waggled my pink tuft of hair at her blue lock, and we pretended that our hair was fighting, making growling noises until we couldn’t help but laugh.

The real surprise though was when Quinn turned up, flanked by Brittany and Santana, as usual. “Mind if we join you?” she asked.

I looked around the rest of the group, seeing looks ranging from surprise to downright unimpressed. “Sure,” I said, scooting over to make some room. “Pull up a chair.”

“Why are you sitting with us?” Rachel asked.

“We could ask you the same question,” Mercedes murmured.

“Well,” Quinn said placidly, “I wanted to let you all know that I’m really sorry about yesterday’s Chastity Club meeting.” She looked specifically at Kurt and Artie. “The boys are jerks, but they’ve never been this bad before. They were completely out of line, and we want you all to know that you’re welcome at the meetings.” Her eyes met mine. “We know how important Glee is, and if Figgins says that you need to attend, then we want to make it easy for you.”

I smiled brightly at her. “Thanks, Quinn. That means a lot.” I looked around at everyone else, and there were a few nods and muttered agreements.

“Also,” Santana said, reaching over and stealing a chip off my plate, “the boys are still talking about how Fiona kicked Puck’s ass. And there’s only so many times you can hear about a guy getting it where it hurts.”

Mercedes grinned. “I don’t know, I could handle it a few more times. Is he even here today? Or did you break him?”

“He’s here,” Santana said. “He’s sulking out on the bleachers. Probably sick of being laughed at.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Good,” I said. He may have gotten my hair, but I got his pride.

“With skills like that,” Quinn said to me, “you’re definitely equipped to be a bodyguard.”

“Hey,” Kurt said, cutting in. “If she’s going to be anybody’s bodyguard, it’s going to be _mine_.”

“Forget bodyguard,” Mercedes said. “This chick is going special forces. You gonna be the next James Bond.”

“He looks good in those little shorts,” Brittany said, and it took a while for us all to figure out that she was talking about Bond.

“He does,” I agreed.

Quinn looked over at me, her eyes a little mischievous. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever shown interest in a boy,” she said. “I was getting worried.”

“James Bond ain’t no boy,” Mercedes corrected. “He’s man all over.”

“I can handle a little bit of man every now and then,” I said, leaning back in my chair and acting cool.

“Or a bit of little man,” Kurt said, waggling his eyebrows, and we both laughed.

That was how we passed lunch, laughing and talking over each other. Santana was still a bitch sometimes, but Mercedes and Kurt were a match for her. Quinn certainly perked up, which was good. As much was she bugged me, we were still friends. I just didn’t know what was up with her half the time.

*

And yet, part of me was still surprised when Quinn, Brittany, and Santana turned up at the choir room that afternoon.

Mr Schue gave them a puzzled look. “I’m sorry, was this room booked for the Cheerios?”

“No,” Quinn said. “We’re here to audition. We want to join Glee.”

Heads turned and looked at me, but this was the first that I had heard of it.

“Well,” Mr Schue said, “show us what you’ve got.”

Quinn is, I think, as unlike me as you can possibly get. She’s petite, and perfectly proportioned. She’s blonde, and cute, and makes heads turn. And when she sings, it’s lovely. She doesn’t need to growl, or scream, or do any of those things to hide her weird voice. When she sings it’s light and clean, like you’d hear in a church. And when she dances, her moves are always exactly right.

I looked over at Mr Schue, and saw that he was impressed. Not that I could blame him. Hell, _I_ was impressed.

“You’re sure this is okay with Coach Sylvester?” Mr Schue asked when they finished.

Quinn nodded. “She was very supportive of our decision.”

“In that case, welcome aboard.” He gave the rest of us a grin that was pure, excited glee. Nine people now. We only needed three more and we could be a team.

God, we were nearly there.

*

After practice, I found Puck slumped against my locker. “What do you want?” I asked, giving him a dark look.

“I, uh, need to borrow your deodorant.” As a side effect of growing up with Puck as a best friend, we’ve both developed some weird habits. We wear the same deodorant, split two-packs of tooth brushes, and I have a jar of olives at my house that only he eats, and he has a stash of Hershey’s kisses in his room even though he hates them.

But I was still able to spot a weak excuse to talk to me when I saw one. I handed over the can, and he obligingly stepped aside so I could get to my locker. He even made a show of spraying some on. He didn’t say anything as my teammates filed past.

“You need any help there, Finn-honey?” Kurt asked.

Mercedes pretended to flick Kurt’s hair. “Did you not see my girl in action yesterday? Finn’s got this _covered_.”

“W-w-we’ll see you outside,” Tina said, giving me a ‘we’ll wait, and if need be, come and rescue you’ look as she wheeled Artie. He and I bumped fists as he went past.

Then the Cheerios walked past. They didn’t say anything, but Puck and Quinn shared this long look, before they looked away at the same time.

“So,” Puck said, when everyone had cleared off and given us some space. “What’s with everyone calling you Finn all of a sudden?”

“It’s my name,” I replied. “It’s what people call me.”

“It’s what _I_ call you,” he corrected.

I shrugged, not getting his point. “And now everyone calls me Finn.” I paused, digging Kurt’s pawpaw ointment out of my pocket, and rubbing some on my lips.

“What the hell is that?” Puck asked, his lip curling as he watched me.

“Lip stuff. What’s it look like?”

Puck turned away, crossing his arms over his chest. “You never needed any of that crap before.”

“Yeah, well, perhaps what I really need is for my best friend not to be such a jerk all the time. But hey, I’ll take whatever replacement I can get.”

Puck flinched at the word ‘replacement’. “And what the hell is up with your hair?”

“Some Lima Loser went and ripped half of mine out. Or didn’t you hear?”

“Look,” he said, staring down at his crossed arms, “I know I’ve been a jerk. Trust me. I’ve had multiple people explain it to me many, many times since yesterday. It’s just, you know,” his face twisted as he struggled for words. “It’s just that it’s really hard to be your friend sometimes.”

I snorted. “Right. Because being your friend is such a piece of cake.”

“Damn right it is,” Puck said, unfolding his arms and flexing a bicep. “Piece of beefcake, that is.”

I tried to snort again, but a laugh came out with it.

“Look, I was a jerk, you got to punch me up in front of all of my bros – and that is so not cool, Finny, you should know better. So we’re cool now, right? I mean, I will never be able to father children, and how else are we going to get some awesome little Mohawks running around this town? But you’re my girl, you know? You’re awesome. You don’t need the hair stuff or that lip gunk, or to be making a fool of yourself in front of everyone like that.”

I frowned at Puck. He’d been doing pretty well, for him. “I liked being up on stage,” I told him. “I like singing. I even _like_ the dancing.”

“I know,” he said softly. “And you looked good up there. Really good.” Puck gave me that smile, that hopeful one with the puppy dog eyes and that gets him out of trouble with girls more often than it should.

“I know you too well for that look to work,” I told him.

“I know,” he said. “You know me better than anyone.” He slumped back against the row of lockers again. “So. Are we cool?”

I gave Puck a sweet smile, before slamming my locker shut. “Not by a long shot,” I said. And then I slung my bag over my shoulder, and walked away. “But feel free to keep trying,” I called back.

“Fuck that,” he called after me. “I’m just gonna go settle for a chick that falls for the eyes, Finny-girl.”

I flipped him off without looking around, and his laugh followed me down the corridor.

We’d be cool again, eventually.


	6. In which shopping happens, juice is drunk, and Fiona hates underpants.

I was so glad when the weekend rolled around. It was a crazy week, and I really just wanted to lie in bed and play video games for two days. Then I heard a horn beep outside. Crap, Quinn! I shoved myself into some clothes, checked to make sure none of my hair had fallen out yet (Kurt, you are a god), and raced outside.

“Get back here!” my mom yelled after me. “You need to buy new underwear!” I went red in the face, darted back, and snatched the notes from her. She managed to grab me a plant a kiss on my cheek before I could escape. Sometimes I swear she just had a kid so she could yell stuff like that across the country. I love my mom, and she loves messing with me.

I threw myself into the back of Quinn’s car, and only then noticed that it wasn’t just the two of us – Santana and Brittany were along for the ride. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I kind of felt this sinking feeling.

“It’s okay,” Santana said from the front passenger seat, her mouth set in that curl she has, “I know all about buying underwear.”

“Not like you ever wear it for long,” I muttered.

“The whole point of underwear is taking it off,” Santana said, settling back into her seat.

“You’re such a slut,” Quinn said, turning her cd player on as she turned onto the highway.

“Oh god,” Santana said, “do we have to listen to this crap?”

“My car, my music,” Quinn replied firmly.

When Quinn did singing lessons, she sang a lot of pop and show tunes and stuff. I mean, that’s all they teach you, right? But as it turns out, she’s not really into that stuff. She liked blues and soul and funk, which is apparently not at all like the word ‘funky’ would suggest.

Another thing you should know is that the nearest good mall to Lima? Is about an hour’s drive away. And since Quinn’s mixed CD only went for twenty minutes, we all got to know the songs pretty well. Not that I minded – me and Brittany were singing in the back, me trying to go up high, and her saying “You sound like a duck,” which lead to me doing my Donald Duck impersonation, and her doing Daffy Duck. Have you ever heard two ducks singing ['Nice Work if you can Get it'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVgKiadhVJk)? Because I think you need to.

The mall is a place that I don’t go to often. Like, maybe four times in my whole life. It’s too far away for mom and me to drop in when I need new clothes. And while there’s a bus, can you imagine how long that would take? Anyway, between Walmart and Amazon, I’ve got everything covered. Except, as it turns out, no, I don’t.

“Alright,” Quinn said, looking me up and down as I clambered out of her car and stretched in the parking lot. “We’re going to need some new tops. And a cute jacket. And definitely some new pants. Do you own heels?”

“Quinn, we’ve had the conversation about heels – I’d concuss myself going through doorways. And I can’t afford all of that stuff!”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I have my dad’s credit card.”

“And we’ve always got your underwear fund,” Santana added. I glared at her.

“Don’t worry,” Quinn said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along. “This will be fun.”

*

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Quinn and I have very different ideas of fun. I was locked in the change room of American Eagle, throwing clothes over the top of the door even as the evil threesome shoved more in through the gap at the bottom.

“No. No. No,” I said, tossing skirts over. “Definitely no,” I added, throwing a flowery flowy top thing.

“You’re not even trying these on any more!”

“Quinn, none of these even fit. They’re all too small!”

“Which means they’re probably fitting you fine. Your clothes are all too big anyway. Here, let me see what you have on.”

“Nothing. I have nothing on, because _nothing_ here is made in giant size.”

“This isn’t working,” Santana said.

I could sense Quinn putting her hands on her hips. “You’re right. Let’s try Old Navy.”

I pulled my shirt back on, and shuffled out of the room. Brittany looked at me seriously. “You really don’t understand shopping.”

No kidding.

*

We found a pair of pants in Old Navy. A pair of jeans that were meant to be three-quarter length, but in reality just covered my knees. Apparently Old Navy has a whole range for tall people, just not here in the middle of Ohio. “It’s okay,” Quinn said. “Long shorts are still in. And now that we know your size, we can order online.” Great, that meant the shopping trip would never truly end.

Quinn got several tops, all with names like ‘key hole’ or ‘ruffle’, and some cardigans. Even Brittany loaded up with bright things to wear. I felt kind of silly following them through the register, with my one purchase. Quinn saw me eyeing a rack of men’s polo shirts – like the one I was wearing – on the way out.

“Let’s try Forever 21,” she said. “I hear they have some plaids in.”

Forever 21 wasn’t as cool as Old Navy. For a start, it had no men’s section. That’s one of the things that also happened from growing up with Puck – our mom’s would take turns getting clothes for us, and it was easiest just to confine us to one section of the Walmart and let us pick out own stuff. I own a lot of polos and boys’ jeans.

But Brittany was off, cooing at a shirt with ducks on it, and Santana found a singlet thing that had police tape over it, and Quinn was drawn in by the magic of dresses. Which left me standing all alone and all kinds of awkward, until I head a small “Hi,” behind me.

It was Rachel. Holding a sweater with an owl wearing glasses on it. “Oh,” I said. “Hey.”

“You’re out shopping?” she asked, looking around. “With the girls?”

“Yeah. This is Quinn’s present for my birthday. But it’s not turning out so great, you know?” I gestured at the owl jumper. “I just don’t really get this stuff.”

Rachel suddenly got a determined look in her eye. “I can assure you that I am the perfect guide to Forever 21. And also Macy’s.” She grabbed my wrist, and dragged me through the racks. “We’ll find you something.”

Rachel seemed to know me a little better. She knew that there was a difference between something that I might potentially look good in, and something that I would actually wear. She found this giant, baggy grey sports top, like a stretched out cotton football jersey.

“You’ll need something to wear under this,” she said. “It’s a distressed style, so it’ll slip down your shoulders. But a simple black tank top will do. You should check out American Apparel for that.” She also found a black shirt that buttoned up, but it was fitted and the sleeves were rolled up just past the elbow. “This is a cute version of the standard, male business shirt.” She looked up at me and gave me one of those small smiles. “I think it’d look good on you.”

And that’s how Quinn found us. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I think you’ll find the auditions for _Ru Paul’s Drag Race_ were last week.”

Rachel took a step back, so I used the space to hold up the shirts she’d found me. “Hey,” I said, “what do you think of these?”

Quinn eyed them off, and then her eyes flicked to Rachel. “It’s a start,” she said.

“So,” I said to Rachel, as I took them to the counter. “Are you shopping with anyone else?”

“No,” she said. “My two gay dads dropped me off on their way to a GLBT conference. I’m finding my own way home, which I’m sure will be an exercise in maturity and problem solving.”

I wanted to offer her a lift, but a look at Quinn told me that no, that wasn’t going to happen. “Well,” I said, “here, do you want my mobile number? You can call me if that doesn’t work so good.”

“Really?” Her face lit up in this big smile. “That would be great.”

*

We left Rachel thumbing through the racks, and hit up American Apparel, Charlotte Russe, Jamba Juice, and then they had to forcibly remove me from the Gap. What can I say, those knitted jumpers are kind of my thing. Santana demanded we go to Hot Topic, and that was where we ran into Tina and Mercedes.

“Hey!” I said, as Tina gave me a hug.

“Hey yourself, girl,” Mercedes said, giving me a fist bump. “What are you doin’ here?”

“Shopping. I think.”

“Ooh, lemme see what you got!”

“We caught the bus here,” Tina told me are Mercedes pawed through my bags. “Don’t ever catch the bus.”

“Yeah,” Mercedes said from near my knees. “We’re lucky we ran into Kurt here. He’s giving us a lift home, if we can ever drag him out of Macy’s.”

Tina rolled her eyes. “They’re having a Marc Jacobs sale, and he’s determined to find the perfect watch.” She pulled my black button up from Mercedes. “You know what this needs? A sweater vest to go over it.”

Mercedes poked her temple. “Girl, you’ve got sweater vests on the _brain_.”

Tina laughed, and wriggled away. “What? They’re awesome, but in a secret, stealth kind of way.”

I thought about the people I knew who worse sweater vests. I thought about Mr Schue. “Yeah,” I said. “They’re cool.”

“Come on,” Tina said dragging me off. “I know the perfect one.”

I spent maybe the next forty minutes laughing and joking with Tina and Mercedes. They found me a sweater vest, and then we looked at all the cool sneakers, and Mercedes pawed through their racks of jewellery while Tina tried to find the perfect pair of gloves. I didn’t mean to find them, I was poking through a clearance bin, but once I had them in my hand, I couldn’t let go.

Mercedes tool one look and said “You have to try those on.”

“They’re so eighties.”

And they were. Gloves that went all the way up my arms, in leopard print, with the fingers cut off. I mean, that was pretty hardcore eighties fashion right there. I looked at myself, with my green and white polo and my pink hair, and the yellow gloves. “This isn’t working,” I said.

“That’s just ‘cause you’re not accessorising right. Here,” Mercedes rustled through my stuff again. “Put this on.”

It was the little black tank top from American Apparel. And with that on instead... it almost made sense.

“You have to buy those,” Tina said. “You’ll regret it for the rest of your life if you don’t.”

“Those are totally rock star,” Mercedes agreed.

“Where would I wear them?” I asked. “They’re not practical for _anything_.”

Mercedes pulled out her phone, and punched a number on speed dial. “Kurt, honey. I’m with Finn and she won’t buy these amazing gloves because they’re not ‘practical’.” Yes, she even did air quotes.

She held her phone up to me ear, and I heard Kurt say, “-her that fashion is not about _practical_ , fashion is about letting the inner you out and into the world and looking as fabulous as possible. Practical is so unimportant that it isn’t even on the list. Look, where are you? I’ll come and sort this out.”

“We’ll meet you at the food court, Kurt,” I said.

I had time to hear him yell, “Buy the gloves!” before Mercedes hung up on him.

“You’ve been officially outvoted,” she said.

*

“It’s like this,” Kurt told me as we met up in the food court, wearing the most casual outfit I’d ever seen him in. “There’s this whole, fantastic person that’s locked up inside you, inside everyone. But no one can see what’s inside, just what’s on the outside. Which is why it’s _so important_ to make sure that your outside matches your inside.”

“Or who you want to be,” Mercedes added.

“Or what you want people to think of you,” Tina chimed in.

“He’s right,” Brittany said. “People just want to get inside you.”

We all paused at that insight.

“What she _means_ ,” Quinn corrected, “is that if you want people to know something about you, you have to show it to them.”

And I thought about it. About band t-shirts and the posters on my walls. In that light, things like make up and clothes and nails and hair made more sense. Mercedes was bright and colourful and loud, and hell if you couldn’t tell that much about her just by looking at her. It went for all of my friends, even people like Santana with her sneakers and Cheerios jacket on over jeans and a t-shirt that almost wasn’t there.

And then look at me.

Me and my hand-me-downs, and Puck’s spares. While I don’t think I’ll ever be more comfortable than in a pair of jeans, in reality all of my clothes had been bought for someone else. I just grew into them as best I could.

And maybe that needed to change.

Mercedes grinned at me. “I think she gets it.”

*

I tore a pretzel apart as I listened to Tina and Mercedes try to explain music genres to Brittany. They’d tried the same thing with me, but I still didn’t know what the difference between metal and rock really was, let alone any of the stuff Mercedes was into. Kurt and Santana were having the world’s shortest conversation about uniforms.

“It’s cute,” Kurt said.

“I know,” Santana replied.

“But maybe not red.”

“It looks good in red.”

“But not everyone else looks good in red.”

“Duh, that’s the point.”

“Right... but maybe in periwinkle?”

“It looks good in red.”

Her cranky face almost hid the fact that she was stealing the grapes out of Kurt’s fruit salad. Quinn had gone to the pharmacy to pick some stuff up, and seemed to be taking her sweet time. I wondered if she’d notice if I stole her second Jamba Juice of the day.

“Hi guys.”

I looked up, and offered a distracted, “Hi, Rachel.” I think that was the most enthusiastic reaction she got, but it didn’t stop her from sitting down at the table. She looked around, and did a double take when she saw Kurt, her eyes locked on his shirt.

“Is that a crew shirt for _‘Wicked’_?”

Kurt gave her a long look up and down. “Yes,” he said at last. “You have quite an eye.”

“I was trying to collect every piece of _‘Wicked’_ merchandise available, but my two gay dads refused to let me buy the neon bar light.”

“They were right,” Kurt replied. “It’s in hideous taste. Even for you.” But he was still looking at her out of the corner of his eye. “I’m surprised to see a fan of the show in Lima that I didn’t indoctrinate myself.”

Rachel leaned forwards, her hands flat on the table. “It’s one of my career goals to play the role of Elphaba. And also, of course, the role of Eponine from _‘Les Mis’_.”

“You and how many others?” Kurt replied, combing his fringe out his eyes. “While I don’t think I’m vocally suited to any of the roles in that particular production, even I would consider getting a role quite the achievement.”

“I don’t know,” Rachel replied, eyeing Kurt playfully. “I’m sure you could do a credible performance as little Cosette.”

Kurt barked out a laugh, and then they were off talking about musicals. Rachel felt that she was perfect for any and every female lead role, and Kurt seemed ready to fight her for some of them. I sat between them, chewing on a straw and wiggling it between my front teeth, making it bounce up and hit my nose. It was like a game, how many times I could straw myself before they switched to a new musical? But then it was cut short.

“You’re in my seat.” Quinn, with all of the annoyance that she could muster. And Quinn was, like, an expert at that.

“This isn’t school,” Rachel said, smoothing her skirt down over her legs. “I can sit where I want.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “If you want to sit next to Finn so badly, you can have _my_ seat.” Then he stood up, and sat himself down on my lap, looping his arms around my neck. “If our little rock starlet doesn’t object, that is?”

I grabbed Kurt by the waist, and pretended to throw us both off the seat, making him yelp and clutch at me. “Nah, seriously, it’s cool. Come on Quinn, I didn’t steal much of your drink.”

Quinn sat down, and Santana pushed Kurt’s left over salad over to her. “We need to be going soon,” she said. “I need to be home for dinner.”

“Yeah,” Mercedes said, dropping her conversation with Brittany about baby animals for a minute. “Kurt, you still cool to drive us?”

“Of course,” Kurt replied. “Anything for my girls.”

Rachel frowned. “Do any of you have a timetable for the bus?”

There was an awkward silence. I jiggled my leg, making Kurt bounce. He frowned at me, and then rolled his eyes. “Rachel,” he said at last, sounding like each word was being dragged out of him. “Would you like a lift home?”

Rachel looked at Kurt, then at me, then down to her lap. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“It’s... fine,” Kurt managed. “It’s no trouble. _And_ maybe we could use the time to talk about Glee, since you apparently know so much about competitions.”

“Well, I _do_ write to the National Show Choir Board regularly, and my understanding of the requirements for registration is flawless.”

“That’s the conversation for our ride home taken care of, then,” Mercedes said drily.

Tina rested her chin on her hand. “Joy.”

Rachel ignored them, and when Kurt bent over the table to examine Tina’s streaks, Rachel looked at me and mouthed ‘thank you’. I dipped my head, as if to say ‘don’t worry about it’.

“Come on,” Quinn said, sorting out the bags around her feet. “We’ve still got a few things to get before we go.”

“Yeah,” Santana said, smiling at me smugly. “Like Fiona’s underwear.”

I went red. We’d managed to go a whole hour without her mentioning it. Clearly she had just been biding her time.

“Ohmygod,” Kurt said, slinging his arms around my neck. “This is perfect. Victoria’s Secret is just downstairs.”

“We’re coming with you,” Mercedes said. “We need to get you something _fierce_.”

“Yeah,” Tina added. “So long as we don’t tell my mom. What? She doesn’t like me going into those stores without supervision.”

“Woah,” I said. “Wait, hang on now. I really don’t need this many people helping me with underwear.”

“Just as well we won’t be helping,” Santana said.

“I like the colours,” Brittany said.

“I’d better come too,” Quinn said. “To make sure you don’t end up with something ridiculous.”

“Don’t you get it?” I asked. “We are _not_ going to Victoria’s Secret.”

Rachel smiled at me, showing her teeth. “I heard they have official NRL gear.”

*

So. Needless to say, we went. It was loud, confusing, and a little emotionally scarring, but we went. I got underpants, and that’s all you need to know. Next time I buy underwear, I’m sticking with a five-pack from Walmart.


	7. In which Fiona does homework, Mr Schue skips class, and hospital visits are made.

I was cleaning out my school bag Sunday evening when I found the note. Mr Schue would write reminders in our work books each week for stuff that we needed to get better at, or assignments that we should start on, or stuff that was overdue. There was something written in Spanish, and then “by Monday”, and then a sad face of epic proportions. I madly scrambled back through my workbook. Crap, of course.

What I did last summer.

So there went my evening, spent in a mad scramble. I called Kurt but, of course, he’d already handed things up. “I’ll help you tomorrow morning,” he said. “I kinda need to talk to my dad about something.”

I was up all night trying to put it together. My workbook was no help, since I kind of suck at taking notes, and the internet is always less help than it could be. I considered writing out the lyrics to some Beach Boys songs in Spanish. Points for effort, right?

“You get no sympathy from me,” mom said in the morning.

“I just forgot, I swear.”

“Uh huh,” she checked her watch. “I’m late. Come to the hospital after school, and we’ll go out for dinner to celebrate your miraculous save on this.”

I grunted a reply, trying to write in my book and spoon cereal into my mouth at the same time. I gave up, and tried for calling Kurt and eating cereal instead.

“You’re in luck, I still have my book from last year.”

“Thanks, Kurt. You really are the Head Bitch. Hey, how did the talk with your dad go?”

“Good,” he said. “I think. Look, I have to go. I can’t coordinate an outfit properly unless I give it my complete concentration.”

*

I had my head bent over one of the outside tables, trying to piece together my few sentences with Kurt’s notes that didn’t have anywhere near enough English in them, when I got a text from my mom.

**Looks like you have an extra day**

I had no idea what that meant, right up until Spanish, which was being taught by Miss Pillsbury. “Now, Mr Schuester is off sick today, but he tells me that you’re about halfway through _‘The Prisoner of Azkaban’_?”

“Don’t worry,” she said to me after the lesson. “I’m sure there will still be a Glee practice tomorrow. And, hey, that’s cool, right?”

Note to self, look less sad around Miss Pillsbury.

But the badness of the situation didn’t hit me until lunch time. Mr Schue was off sick, I get a note from my mom, my mom works at a _hospital_. To be honest, it may have taken people to restrain me.

“It’s probably fine,” Mercedes said. “People go to the hospital for all kinds of things. Don’t mean it’s life-threatening.”

“Right,” Rachel said. “Maybe he’s broken a bone.”

“Or maybe,” Mercedes said, glaring at Rachel, “it’s nothing at all.”

Artie looked back and forth between us. “She said there’d still be Glee tomorrow, right? So it can’t be anything really bad.”

Rachel looked at me again. “Can’t you just ask your mom?”

“No,” I said glumly. “There’s privacy issues and stuff.”

“Look,” Kurt said, holding a hand up to silence us. “I think the real question here is _why_ aren’t you wearing any of the fabulous things you got yesterday?”

I looked down at my polo and the jeans with a little hole by the knee. “Because we’re at school?” I tried.

Mercedes gave me a long look. “That ain’t gonna fly with us,” she said. “Even my boy Artie here makes an effort.”

“Yea- _hey_.”

*

I went straight to the hospital after school. Everyone there knows me – with my build, I’m pretty unforgettable – so they’re used to me wandering around and playing with the bandages. Here’s a tip for if you ever want to just wander around a hospital: when you go into a wing, just memorise the name of two departments. If you get caught, just ask for the one you’re not standing next to, and nod when they give you instructions. It’s not like anyone’s going to follow you – nurses have got shit to do, you know?

It took a while, working through emergency and the outpatients block first, but eventually I stumbled upon him sitting on a long bench outside a small room in the ICU.

“Hey,” I said, walking over to him. “You weren’t in school today.”

He looked up at me, and tried to give me a smile. “Don’t tell anyone I was skipping,” he said, and I smiled weakly.

“Are you okay?” I asked. There were no obvious wounds, but he looked really tired.

“I’m fine. It’s just my... friend. He did something stupid last night, and I’m waiting for things to clear up before I drag him home.”

I nodded. “Hospitals suck if you’re the visitor,” I said.

He gave me a look that was almost amused. “I don’t think they’re much better for the patient,” he said.

“Are you kidding? You get fed, and someone else has to clean up after you, and the DVD collection is huge.”

“I suppose that’s true,” he said, looking back at the floor beneath his feet.

“Do you want me to go?” I asked. “I mean, I’m here because my mom works here, and I saw you. But I could leave you alone, if you want. But if you need anything, like coffee or a pillow, or to sing it out...”

This time he really did smile, even if it was only brief. “I think if I raise my voice one more time, I’m going to get thrown out,” he said. There was a pause as he tugged at his fingertips. “But some company wouldn’t go astray.”

“Sure,” I said. “Here, you can help me with my homework.”

“Oh really?” he said, turning to watch me as I dug through my bag.

“Yeah. There’s this big essay thing, that I kind of forgot about, and it’s kicking my ass.”

“But surely you’re the kind of dedicated student that hands everything on time,” he said.

“Oh yeah,” I lied. “Totally. It’s just the one thing...”

And so we spent a good half an hour bent over my Spanish essay, him determined not to help me but kind of helping anyway, and me split between paying attention to the little hints and prompts he gave me, and just plain paying attention to _him_. He had the shortest layer of stubble on his cheeks, and I wondered what it would feel like under my fingers. Would it be sharp, or like a soft fuzz, or more like the friction of fine sandpaper? His hair was messed up, and I wondered if he’d woken up like that, or had spent the day tugging at his hair the way he does when he’s at a loss.

He smelled nice. Like him, but more, if that makes sense. I don’t know. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to perv on your teacher while you’re keeping him company in the ICU, but hell, I did it anyway. Sometimes he’d go silent, and lean back against the wall and I’d wonder what would have happened if he had been hurt, if he was the one in the hospital bed. Would they let me feed him jello? What if he was all drugged up? What would I be dumb enough to say to him if I thought he wouldn’t remember?

I was pulled from my thoughts by the snack trolley being pushed past. Cathy, who works in the cafeteria whispered a “Psst” at me, and flipped me a muffin. I nodded at Mr Schue, and she flipped me a second one. I nudged him with my elbow, and pressed it into his limp hands. He was slow to look up, like he’d been thinking about something and was a million miles away. But he gave Cathy a smile that showed his perfect, white teeth, and said thank you. When he looked away she winked at me, and I tried not to look too embarrassed.

“See?” I said, biting into my muffin. “Hospitals are cool. How often do you get free muffins?”

“This is indeed my first free muffin for the week,” he agreed, tearing off little pieces of muffin and pressing them past his own lips with the pad of his thumb. For a moment I imagined they were my fingers feeding him sweet cake and chocolate chip, and I had to turn away quickly and think of something else.

We ate in silence, each of us thinking our own things, until the light tap of Miss Pillsbury’s heels sounded down the corridor.

“Hi, Will,” she said, smiling at him. I don’t know if she looked worried. I mean, she always looks worried. What I mean is, I don’t know if she looked more worried than usual.

“Hey, Emma,” he replied.

Then she looked at me, and I suddenly realised how weird it probably was to be hanging out with a teacher at a hospital. “Hey,” I said awkwardly.

“Fiona was kindly keeping me company,” Mr Schue explained.

Miss Pillsbury smiled at me. “That’s very kind of you,” she said. “Do you mind if I take over?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to stand up and pack away my things and not drop what little was left of my muffin all at the same time. “Thanks for the help,” I said to Mr Schue. “And I hope your friend gets well soon.”

He smiled without really looking at me, and didn’t say anything.

I walked around the nearest corner, and then into the nearest room. I cut through that one into another, smaller room, which had a second door that led out into the corridor right where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were sitting. I snuck over to that door, and sat down beside it, my ear near the little vent at the bottom. That’s what I loved about the hospital, it was like a maze.

“Will...”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Well, I think maybe you need to hear it anyway.”

There was a long pause, and he sighed.

“Will, you can’t go on like this. This isn’t healthy.”

“It’s not like this happens all the time.”

There was another long pause.

“Do you know how hard it is for me, for your _friends_ to hear you defending him, what he _did_ like that?”

“Emma-”

“What would you say to one of your students if they were in a relationship like this, Will?”

“But I’m _not_ a student, Emma. And relationships are about more than just... just holding hands in a movie theatre. It’s about caring about someone, supporting them.”

Another pause.

“Do you think maybe a relationship should also be about being happy? Or that maybe the people involved should treat each other like equals? Will, this isn’t a good relationship.”

“Look. I know that we have some... problems. But we can work them out. And things haven’t been great lately, but I’ve been busy and I just need to-”

“Will, stop. Please just stop. I just... I don’t know if you can hear yourself. I hope that maybe you can’t, that you don’t realise how you sound. Because if you did. If someone as sweet, and kind, and-and as great as you are, if you _knew_ that you were being like this, making excuses for _that man_...”

“Emma-”

“No, Will. Bryan is a _bad_ person. He is bad to you, and he is bad for you, and you just... you need to see that.”

Another pause, filled with Miss Pillsbury’s shaking breath, and total silence from Mr Schue. And then she added, in a very small voice.

“There are worse things than being alone, Will.”

I held my breath through the next pause, keeping time with my heart beating in my ears.

“Come on,” he said eventually. “Let’s go get some coffee.”

I could hear them standing up, some joints cracking and I could imagine Mr Schue stretching his arms up over his head, making his shoulders pop.

“You know,” she said as they walked down the hall, “hospitals really aren’t that clean, despite what you may think. Do you think they’ll let me use my own cup?”

I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore. And then waited even longer still, to make sure they weren’t in sight. Then I slo-o-o-owly opened the door back into the hallway, and stuck my head out. No one around. Perfect. I dropped my bag on the bench, and peered into the room opposite. A guy with blond hair was unconscious in the bed, some tubes poking into him, but no face-raping oxygen mask, so I figured he was probably okay. I figured he was probably also the guy who sucked face with Mr Schue outside of the bar. I peered at his charts. So, this was Bryan.

Bryan Ryan.

Despite it being a major violation of privacy, and a little illegal, I totally riffled through his papers. I mean, looking at charts and papers and stuff doesn’t actually tell you much – it’s all short hand, and have you seen how medical people write? Whenever I get told off for bad handwriting I just want to point my teachers to the nearest hospital. But I do know some of the short hand, because mom had to learn it a few years ago when she started working here, and we made some flash cards and everything. We joke about it a lot, turning everything we can into shorthand, even if it takes longer to figure out what we’re talking about than saying it normally. Anyway, I guess this is getting off topic. The short of it was that I saw the notes after diagnosis, and my mouth literally fell open.

Mr Schue’s boyfriend was in for a heroin overdose.

Mr Schue was dating a crack-head.

*

“You took your time this afternoon,” mom said over hamburgers at the diner three blocks away. That was mom-talk for ‘dear, you are so busted’.

“Um,” I said. “I was finishing my essay,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie. I mean, I lie to my mom less than most sixteen year olds do, so this one practically didn’t even count, right?

Mom flicked her eyes up at me, and stared at me for a long moment. Huh, I guess it did.

“So,” I said, trying to be all casual. “What would you do if someone you knew, someone really great, was in a bad relationship?”

Mom dragged a chip through the epic pool of tomato sauce on my plate. “I guess that depends on the person and the relationship. I mean, if one of your school friends were messing with a bad crowd, that would be one thing.” She paused to bite the end off her chip. “But if this person were an adult, and was your _teacher_ , and was messing around with the kind of bad that gets the whole town talking,” she looked up at me, very serious, “I’d stay out of it.”

I tried for a casual ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’ laugh, and failed completely. “Right,” I said. “Officially staying out of it.”

*

And that’s what I intended to do. I mean, it really wasn’t any of my business. And the reality was that he was my teacher and I was just one of his dumb students, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have people looking out for him. I mean, he’s BFF with the school counsellor, and she’d be way better at dealing with this than me. And he probably wouldn’t want me poking my nose in, what with me being a student and all. Even if he had wanted me to keep him company.

But still. I made a vow to keep my nose out of his personal life, and to never breathe a word of what I’d learned at the hospital to _anyone_.

Which lasted right up until lunch the next day.

*

“So,” Artie said when I sat down. “I guess Mr Schue’s okay.” He nodded over to where Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury were walking down the hall on the other side of the long glass windows looking out of the cafeteria.

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s fine.”

I could feel them all exchanging looks as I dug into whatever weird kind of pasta was being served that day. It was just the five of us, since Quinn had been sitting with the other Cheerios since the shopping trip on the weekend. I guess she’d overdosed on Glee.

Mercedes fixed me with a look. “So, was he actually in hospital?”

I struggled with that one for a little bit. “He was in the hospital, but not like, _in_ in.”

“So he wasn’t a patient?”

“No,” I said. “He was visiting someone.” I could have kicked myself when I said that, because I saw Kurt’s eyes go wide, and judging from the way everyone else exchanged looks, he’d told everyone about what we’d seen outside the bar.

The conversation was cut off by the arrival of Rachel, who had a plate of salad and some pasta without sauce on it. “It is disgusting and discriminatory that the cafeteria _still_ doesn’t cater for vegans,” she said as she sat down. She then rummaged through her bag, and pulled out her own bottle of pasta sauce. “It’s a good thing I have the lunch menu memorised, or else I wouldn’t eat at all.”

“That’d be a tragedy,” Mercedes agreed. “Since it’s the only time you’re quiet.”

Rachel sniffed, ignoring Tina’s giggle. “It’s not my fault I’m naturally verbose. I was raised to never be afraid to express myself.” She paused to take a big bite out of a leaf of lettuce. “So what were you talking about?”

There was an awkward silence. I can’t speak for everybody else, but I knew that I had my doubts about telling Rachel about the Mr Schue situation. I mean, she was definitely the kind of person who wouldn’t be able to stay out of it, and Mr Schue was spending too much time away from Glee as it was. I didn’t want anyone inside the club pushing him away as well.

Thankfully, for once, it wasn’t me who cracked under Rachel’s stare.

“M-m-mr Schue has a b-boyfriend.”

“I know,” Rachel said, pausing to delicately fork some pasta noodles into her mouth. “What? My two gay dads _are_ the secretary and treasurer of the Lima PFLAG association, and the GLBT alliance.”

I stared at Rachel, wondering how anyone could pronounce so many capital letters so clearly. “I have no idea what those are,” I said.

“Anyway, Mr Schue was involved for a few years, but apparently some things got messy. They don’t talk about it, but I get the impression that it was quite scandalous. His boyfriend runs the car dealership over in West Lima.”

“The one with the Hummers?” Kurt asked. “My dad nearly bought a car from there, but I talked him out of it. With the money we saved on fuel, I was able to order three jackets from Europe.”

“I figure he must be an okay guy,” Rachel continued, ignoring Kurt completely. “I mean, it’s Mr Schue. It’s not like he’s going to be getting involved with some West Lima crack-head.”

Everyone turned and looked at me, and I felt my face going red. “I don’t know if he actually _lives_ in West Lima.”

And then they really started on me.


	8. In which Puck is a pussy, Mercedes is a diva, Quinn drops a bombshell, and Rachel has a picnic.

“So,” Puck said, leaning against my locker after school. “What was all the noise about at lunch? You looked like you were getting swamped.”

“Nothing,” I said, shoving him out of the way. Puck waited for me to say more, but I was keeping my mouth shut.

“What?” he said. “You’re keeping secrets from me now?”

I snorted. “Yeah, because you tell me everything.” He got this weird expression on his face then, like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Anyway, it’s nothing. Just some Glee stuff.”

Puck snorted, and let his head fall back against the wall of lockers. “How come you don’t sit with us anymore?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with the pieces of underpants that are still stuck to my locker, thanks to you and your friends? Maybe it’s because no one really wants me around anyway? _Maybe_ it’s because I have some friends who like having me around for once.”

“I like having you around,” Puck said. He crossed his arms across his chest, and glared down the hall. “Hey, do you want to hang out? Matt gave me copies of some horror movies he downloaded.”

“I can’t,” I said, shutting my locker and giving Puck a wide, sweet smile. “I have Glee practice.”

“So? Skip it.”

“I’m not skipping Glee.” Puck’s face twisted into something that was essentially a sulk. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said.

I punched his arm. “Don’t be a douche. What?”

Puck shifted his shoulders, like he didn’t fit in his own skin right. “I’m used to other girls blowing me off all the time, but not you,” he said at last. “I thought we were cool.”

“We are cool,” I said. “I just don’t have the time anymore.”

Puck looked down at his feet, scowling. “Right,” he said.

“Look,” I said at last, hauling my bag up onto my shoulder. “You want to hang out? Come join Glee.”

Puck snorted. “Right. Like I’m gonna join that one-way ticket to swirly-ville.”

“I thought you were a badass,” I said.

“I am.”

I snorted. “No way. Badasses aren’t so pussy. Look, I’m late. I’ll catch you later.”

*

When I got to Glee, Rachel was already talking Mr Schue’s ear off. She had some rule book out, and was flipping back and forth through it, and had printouts and all sorts. I bet she even had a chart stashed off to one side.

“- and I looked at previous year’s winners, and it seems that the judges favour show tunes. Now, we’ll also need a ballad, and I’ve compiled a short list-” she dug out three pages of song titles, “-that I think would be both appropriate, and suit my own vocal range.”

“Wow, okay. You really did your homework on this, Rachel.”

Rachel stepped back, a pleased smile on her face. “We want to compete, Mr Schue. And we know that you don’t have a lot of free time, so I decided it would be in everybody’s interest to spend my weekend productively.”

Mr Schue looked a little sad for a moment. “I’m really going to try to be around more for you guys,” he said. “It’s not fair on you that you’ve had to do so much on your own. I mean, you’ve been great, but you’re right, Rachel. We do need some more structure in this club if we’re going to succeed.”

“Great,” Rachel said. “Now, moving on to sheet music...”

“She totally steamrolled him,” Tina whispered to me as I sat down.

“She didn’t even give him a chance,” Artie agreed.

Kurt shook his head slowly. “I honestly think she could talk someone to death.”

“Hey,” I whispered back. “At least she’s getting things done.”

Mr Schue looked up, and saw us all sitting and staring. “Hey, guys, get over here. Let’s see if we can’t pick out some numbers and start practicing for Invitationals.”

It took Mercedes all of three seconds to find a fault in Rachel’s homework. “ _Why_ are there no R’n’B songs?”

“And why do half of these have your name written at the top?” Quinn asked, holding a sheaf of paper between her thumb and forefinger.

“Look, guys, I only had what the library had to offer. And my own collection, of course.”

“It’s okay,” Mr Schue said. “I can probably find some stuff to fill in the gaps. Let’s just try to work with what we’ve got for the moment.”

“I want to sing this one,” Quinn said, handing over the sheet music for a song called ['Summertime'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WWtGpEqpV4).

“Are you for real?” Mercedes asked, snatching the music away. “You think a white girl like you could to justice to a black song like this?”

Quinn arched an eyebrow, and I slowly edged away from her. “You don’t think that maybe the message of the song could be felt by people of _all_ colours? We _do_ live in Lima.”

“Are you honestly comparing living in Lima to being a slave? Please tell me you are not being so dumb in my presence.”

“You know,” Kurt said, having to raise his voice to be heard over their argument. “I’m not finding anything suited to my voice either.”

“Here,” Rachel said handing over some music. “I got this one especially for you.”

I looked over Kurt’s shoulder. The song was ['Castle on a Cloud'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u9QNYjYvYQ). “Very cute, Berry,” Kurt replied, and Rachel gave him a small, proud smile in return.

I looked over at Mr Schue, who looked like he couldn’t decide whether trying to break Mercedes and Quinn up would be more trouble than it was worth. “Do you think you could find some rock? Like we did earlier?”

“Sure,” he said. “Was there anyone you had in mind?”

I must have turned into Rachel for a moment, because I had a freaking _list_ of people.

*

Mr Schue decided to resolve the Mercedes and Quinn issue by getting them to sing it out. “Whoever does the song better, gets to keep it. You can practice before the next rehearsal-”

“Mr Schue,” Quinn interrupted. “I’m ready to go now.”

“Me too,” Mercedes said. “But I want to go first. No need for you to embarrass yourself, once you seen how much I got this.”

I actually knew the song pretty well – it had been playing in Quinn’s car on the weekend. Mercedes did it well, filled it with runs and sharp hand moves, and really showed off her voice. She didn’t even need to glance at the music.

Quinn did it differently. She stood still, with her hands clasped over her stomach, and her eyelids lowered. She just looked so small compared to Mercedes. And she didn’t dress it up, if you get what I mean. She just sang, and her voice was strong, and sad, and bitter. It was kind of hard, and I guess that was when I finally got what the song was about, you know? That none of the stuff in the lyrics was going to come true.

We all kind of sat there stunned after she finished. I looked over at Mr Schue, and he looked really floored. And then he kind of pulled himself together, and realised that he had to make a decision on this.

“I think this is a great example,” he said at last, “of how two people can each bring something very different to a song. And it’s something we should all keep in mind when doing our numbers.”

“B-b-but who won?”

Mr Schue looked back and forth between Quinn and Mercedes. “I have no idea,” he said at last.

Mercedes looked Quinn up and down. “Alright,” she said. “You proved your point. That was _good_.”

Quinn gave Mercedes a guarded look in return, before gracing her with a small smile. “You were pretty good yourself.”

“Pretty good? _Pretty_ good? Girl, I was amazing. I was a diva with that song.” Mercedes paused as Quinn’s mouth cracked into a real smile, laughing gently at her. She turned and looked at Mr Schue. “I respectfully bow out,” she said. “I think we need more smiling and less fighting anyway.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Mr Schue replied.

“Yeah, well, I want you all to remember this moment if I ever need to take one of you to the carpet, understand?”

*

I walked Quinn to her car, telling her how great she was. She, well, she had the kind of voice I wished I had. I mean, Rachel was amazing, and Mercedes just had such a powerful voice, but Quinn. There was just something in there, you know? It didn’t feel like a performance when she sang.

“You’re really good too,” she said. “You just don’t know it.”

I’m not great with compliments, so that kind of killed the conversation until we got to her car. Usually she’d climb in, and I’d start walking home, and we’d wave as she drove past me in the parking lot. But she just stood there by the door of her car, looking at the door handle and frowning. I wondered if she’d lost her keys or something. I do that all the time, and it totally sucks. Mom has to keep a few spare pairs hidden in the yard, because when I use a spare I usually forget to put it back in its spot.

“Fee, can I tell you something?”

I blinked. “Sure.”

“And you won’t tell anyone? You’ll just... it’ll be a secret?”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling my eyebrows go all confused. “Of course.”

She took a deep breath, with her hand on her stomach, staring at the door handle of her car. And then she looked up at me, and I realised that her eyes were shiny. I almost didn’t hear what she said, because her voice kind of died halfway and it ended in a whisper.

“I’m pregnant.”

I blinked at her, kind of dumb. And then I looked down at her stomach. Her fingers tightened, gripping the red fabric of her Cheerios uniform. I looked back up at her face. “For real?”

She nodded, and then a tear rolled down her cheek, and all I could think was fuck, she’s sixteen. Fuck, how the hell is she dealing with this so well? And then I realised that she was crying in a parking lot, talking to me of all people, and I realised that maybe she wasn’t coping so well.

I kind of swallowed her up in a hug, wrapping my arms around her and I was so tall that she could bury her face in the front of my shirt, and just hide there for a while. Her hands gripped the front of my open jacket, and it was like she was trying to crawl under the bed covers or something. Fuck.

“It’ll be okay,” I told her, and I rested my chin on her head, because that’s what my mom does when she hugs me, even though I have to bend down or fall across her for her to do it. “I don’t know how, exactly, but it’ll be okay. We’ll make it okay.”

Quinn nodded, but she kept crying into my shirt, and I just stood there and kept hugging her, and wondering how the hell I was going to follow through on that promise.

Seriously, this was all kinds of not-okay.

*

Needless to say, the next day was pretty hard for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that there were a lot of people who it was harder for. But I was carrying around Mr Schue’s crack-head boyfriend, and Quinn’s baby, and Kurt was kind of out of the closet now but we were all still watching our mouths because, really, there are worse things than getting thrown in a dumpster and we didn’t want to go around inviting any of them.

And then Rachel cornered me and dragged me off to the auditorium for some one-on-one training. I get that she takes the singing stuff seriously, but there was just no way I was up to it. That didn’t stop her, though. Rachel can be a very hard person to say no to. I guess, on the bright side, there was no chance of me blabbing anything else incriminatory around my friends. The downside was that I spent the lunch period by myself, with Rachel.

She made me do scales all through lunch, and then into the next period which was History, but who wouldn’t want to skip that, right? It wasn’t until my stomach rumbled that I realised that I hadn’t gone to the cafeteria, which meant that I hadn’t eaten lunch, which meant I was _starving_.

“It’s okay,” Rachel said. “I packed some extra.”

I don’t know how much Rachel usually eats, but there was enough there to feed both of us, and yeah, I can eat a whole pizza. Sandwiches and sticks of vegetable, and a whole stack of sugar cookies. Apparently everything was vegan-friendly, which I think is like organic but more expensive. But we sat on the stage of the auditorium, and she shared her lunch with me and told me about her two gay dads and how one of them could cook but never had the time, and how the other couldn’t but tried anyway, so she’d learnt from pretty young how to fix things in the kitchen. I mean, I hear Rachel talk – _a lot_ – but it was the first time I’d heard her talk about herself, and her family.

“Hey,” I said suddenly. “How come you never eat lunch with us?”

Rachel stopped smiling, and looked down at her hands. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t really... fit in, with you guys. It’s not like you all like me.”

“Yeah we do.” Rachel gave me a look. “Well, okay, _I_ do.”

“I know,” she said, looking back down at her hands. “I’m glad you’re my friend, Finn. Sometimes I think you’re the only one I have.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, because it was probably true, but I knew I had to say something. “Well, you know. Most of the people in this school, they suck, you know? Like the jocks and the cheerleaders, thinking that being good at something, or being bad at something together, thinking that it makes you something. When it doesn’t. It just makes you a jerk who pushes people around. And you, you’re awesome, Rachel. It’s just that people don’t realise it. And the people who do, well, they probably hate you a little. Not because of who you are or anything, well, maybe a little. But it’s because we’re a whole stupid sucky town of losers, and we’re all going to grow up, and stay here, and we’re all going to _be_ losers. But you’re not. And everyone knows it.”

Rachel looked at me for a long time. “I don’t think you’re a loser.”

I snorted. “Yeah I am. I’m not smart, I’m not pretty. I’m not good at anything except being tall. And that just means I hit my head on doorways sometimes.”

“You’re kind,” Rachel told me. “You’re a good person. You’re good at lots of things.” She leaned forwards and brushed my fringe out of my eyes. “And I think you’re pretty.”

“Thanks,” I said. We stayed like that for a while, Rachel leaning towards me and her hand on my cheek.

“You know,” she said at last, “experimentation in order to discover one’s sexuality is really quite common in teens.”

“Really?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Uh-huh. I read a book on it. Growing up with two gay dads means that you grow up being aware that there’s more than just what’s in the box, what society expects of you. You should feel free to explore new things.”

“Well, that sounds like good advice.” Was she going to suggest some new song for Glee or something? She usually just came out and said whatever was on her mind.

“What I mean is, if you wanted to kiss me, that would be okay.”

Oh. _Oh_. That seriously came out of nowhere. Like, you’d think that she’d build up to it, or something. I looked at Rachel, _really_ looked at her. She looked... worried. She often looked worried, when I thought about it. She stood up for herself in Glee, and probably in class, but when she was on her own, she was different. And I figured, hey, we’re really alike. I mean, we weren’t alike at all, but she knew about not fitting in, and I figured that I was probably the lucky one, despite her having two parents and a big bed and all that stuff, because I’d had Puck for almost all of my life, and she hadn’t really had anyone.

I don’t know if maybe I moved or something, or what happened, but she pressed her lips against mine, and I figured, well, if we were kissing anyway. Her lips were sticky with lip gloss, and when she tilted her head and we opened our mouths she tasted that weird chemical way that lip stuff usually does. But once that taste got off my tongue she tasted like apple juice, and sugar biscuits, and her skin smelled like cocoa. She had her hand on my face still, and her thumb stroked my cheek. I put my hand on her waist, and she leaned forwards more, pressing against me.

And then we heard doors slam open and feet in the halls, and I jerked back, away from her. Her cheeks were red, and she looked a lot more composed than I was sure I did. “Uh,” I said.

“We should go. I have French now.”

“Right,” I said. “That was...”

Rachel paused, looking me up and down. It was like she was looking for something written on me in pen, but she couldn’t find it. “It was just a kiss,” she said. She turned away, and started packing containers into her bag. “This kind of thing happens all the time. There are statistics on it.”

“Oh,” I said. “So you won’t... tell anyone? It didn’t mean anything?”

She turned back to me, and stared at me for a long time. “Of course not,” she said at last. “It was just two friends, being silly.”

“Oh,” I said, climbing to my feet. “Cool.” I slung my bag over my shoulder, and stood around awkwardly while she packed up the last of her things. “You know, you should sit with us tomorrow.”

Rachel looked away from me, tucking her long hair behind her ear. “Maybe,” she said at last. And then she headed off the stage, and towards the back of the auditorium. Her head was down as she walked, and I wondered if I’d done something wrong.

Great. Another thing to worry about.


	9. In which someone auditions, Fiona’s underpants get her into trouble, and everybody yells.

My grades have never been great. I kind of live in my own head sometimes. I think about basketball starting up again (it’s played inside, it’s a year-round professional sport, _why_ does it have to fill the gap left behind by football?), I think about my mom, and what my dad might have been like, and how cool it’d be if he’d been a cowboy instead of a soldier. And then I was also thinking about Quinn, and her baby. Would she give it up? Get an..? Would it be a cute baby? Did I even like babies? If she kept it, would I have to babysit or do anything? I’m not responsible, I just look it. It’s the height.

I was also thinking about Rachel, who still wasn’t eating lunch with us, and kind of glanced at me and looked away in the halls. What was that about? She’d said we were friends, so why was she avoiding me? It couldn’t be the kiss, she’d said we were cool. Why would she say that if she didn’t mean it? Ugh. I was starting to think she was as confusing as Puck.

And then there was Mr Schue. Who always made a point of looking up at me and smiling when he was sitting at his desk, or when we passed in the halls. I punched him in the shoulder once, like the boys do – no eye contact, and then a punch, and then they sort of glance at the punch-ee out of the corner of their eyes, a little smile on their faces. Like they’re saying ‘yeah, I was just messin’ with you. We’re tight’.

The next time we passed in the halls, he punched me back. Except he had his sunglasses on, and this little smile on his face that kind of exploded into a smirk, and I laughed when he did it. I don’t know why. Because it was cute, and funny, and so un-teacherly. Because it made me happy. Because he looked happy when he did it, and I wanted him to be happy.

I thought about what would happen if we were ever alone, and we talked. Would we talk about Glee, and Spanish? Or would we talk about ourselves? Would he tell me about his boyfriend, the crack-head? Maybe I’d wrap my arm around him, do a Miss Pillsbury and tell him that he deserved to be happy. Maybe he’d lean against me, warm and solid and smelling so handsome, and tell me that maybe being happy wasn’t easy. Maybe I’d be brave, and tell him that he made me happy. And he’d turn, with my arm still around him and our bodies pressed together, and our faces would be close, so close – what would his breath small like? The tea he drinks (green, with lemon), the cookies he eats with lunch, or would it just smell like breath? Like part of him. And we’d be so close, our faces so close together, and he’d look down, at my mouth, like maybe he was noticing it for the first time, and-

“ _Dude!_ ”

I jumped about a foot in the air when Puck punched me in the arm. “Wait, what?”

“Lesson’s over,” Puck said as he slid his books into his bag. “Unless you want to stay here all day?”

I thought back to my daydream. I wouldn’t have minded staying there, just a bit longer.

*

With the way I was thinking about Mr Schue, I always worried that Glee would get awkward, but it didn’t. I was distracted a lot, but between Rachel bossing us about and Mr Schue easing us into new moves or harmonies, I think everyone just thought it was me struggling to keep up, like usual. We were settling into a rhythm, regular practices – ones that went all the way through – new songs. For a while it was all just hard work and none of the surprises that Glee had been made of. We were close. We even stood up for ourselves.

When Karofsky shoved Artie savagely in the hallways, we turned around as one and glared at him.

“Oooh, the evil eye. Like that’s going to scare me,” he scoffed. “It’s cute though, that a bunch of girls and faggots think they can be brave. Real cute.”

Artie and I exchanged a look. “I don’t think you know what faggot means,” he said at last.

Karofsky gave Artie a look like he was an idiot. “Homo. Gay. Queer. Cock-sucker.”

“Riiight,” Artie said slowly. “But how does hanging out with girls make us gay?”

Kurt looped his arm through Mercedes. “With these fine ladies on our arms, why would we want to hang out with repressed knuckle-draggers like you?”

“When was the last time you even talked to a girl, Karofsky?” I asked. “For all you brag, I bet you’ve never even held hands.”

“Didn’t you know?” Rachel turned to me. “Girl’s carry gay-cooties. The only way to protect yourself is to go onto a muddy field, assume a position favoured in most adult films, and drive other sweaty boys into the mud and grind against them. Then comes the communal showering.”

“Seriously,” Kurt said, tilting his head back so he could look down his nose at Karofsky. “You spend all your time choking on the sausage-fest that is football, while we’re the only two boys hanging out regularly with seven of the most fantastic women in this school.”

Rachel nodded. “Statistically speaking, Glee has the greatest ratio of girls to boys of any club or sport in the school.”

“And you have the nerve to call us _faggots_?” Kurt out and out sneered at Karofsky. “I’d rather be gay and in Glee than a scared little boy throwing a tantrum in a football jersey, like you.”

I think that ‘scared’ was the only part that sunk into Karofsky’s thick head, and his lip curled back in anger. Puck had been watching this exchange, and he clapped his hand down on Karofsky’s shoulder before he could kill us.

“They’ve got a point, man,” he said. “Even wheels is dancing with the Cheerios.”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Artie look up at Tina and smile, and she looked down at him and smiled back. Somehow I doubted the Cheerios were the highlight of Glee practice for Artie.

“You’re all gay,” Karofsky said, as his parting shot.

Mercedes watching him go with a sad look on her face. “We really deserve better villains.”

*

And then, at the next Glee practice, Puck turned up with Mike and Matt in tow.

“We’d like to join up,” Mike said, his face almost splitting from his grin, like Christmas had come early or something.

Mr Schue looked at them sceptically, his eyes resting on Puck.

“What? Glee gets me out of math. And it has more girls than football.”

“Alright then,” Mr Schue said. “Show us what you’ve got.”

Puck stared back at Mr Schue for a long moment. “What?”

“Glee is a performance club,” Mr Schue said.

“That means you have to audition,” Mercedes called from where we were lounged at the back of the room.

Puck looked at me, his face tight like this was somehow my fault. “You big baby,” I said clambering to my feet. “Come on, we’ll do some KISS.”

We did ['I Was Made for Loving You'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNGNLo8K6Fk), which I think might be Puck’s favourite song of all time. I can remember KISS doing their farewell tour, and Puck being heartbroken for something like a month. I jumped on the drum kit, and Puck grabbed a spare guitar, and Matt and Mike just had to keep up with us.

Puck knows that song backwards, and I guess he was embarrassed, because he played facing me, and singing the words that fit so nicely one after the other in his mouth, thrumming out that steady rhythm on the guitar.

Maybe it was because he was looking so cocky, but for the chorus I leaned forwards and we started trading lines. I started with _”I was made for lovin' you baby, you were made for lovin' me,”_ and Puck followed up with this lazy grin and the lines, “ _And I can't get enough of you baby, can you get enough of me?_ ”

Then Matt had to take over on drums, because I was on my feet, stalking towards Puck like we must have done a million times before in his living room, still trading off lines in our low, serious, rock star voices. I’d push him back during a line, and then he’d lean forward while he sang, making me back up a few steps. I think we’ve always been like that, giving and taking. At the end of the song he made a lunge for me, and I spun away out of his reach. He grabbed me by the back of the pants hauling me closer, and then he looked down.

“... Are you wearing Chicago Browns underpants?” he asked.

Victoria’s Secret, come back to haunt me.

I twisted out of his grip, waiting for him to make a crack about how much my team sucks (Puck is a Raven’s fan), but he didn’t, just kept staring at what my jeans now covered. We both jumped a little when Mr Schue said “That was great, guys,” and I’ll never know if he wanted to say any more, because right then his phone went off, making us all groan. “Sorry, guys. I’ll be right back.”

Which left all of us kids, alone and a little high on seventies hard rock.

Puck reached forwards. “Let me see,” he said, reaching for my pants.

“No way,” I said, taking another step back.

“Dude,” Puck said, following it up with his ‘this is common sense’ look. “You’re wearing AFC panties. You can’t not let me look.”

“I’m pretty sure I can. And they’re _not_ panties.”

“What, are they guys underpants? Because that might be hotter. I don’t know yet,” and he reached for me again. I ducked to the side, and smacked him on the arm. He looked up at me and smiled that smile that showed all of his teeth and made his eyes crinkle. “Come on,” he said. “How many other guys are itching to see your panties?”

“If a guy is itching, then I definitely don’t want him near me,” I shot back.

“Come on, Finn,” he tried again. “You’re sweet sixteen and never been kissed. How many other guys want to see them?”

“I’ve been kissed,” I replied, and instantly hated the way he rolled his eyes and snorted.

“You can’t count the time when we played kisschasey when we were seven.”

“I’m not,” I replied, and watched as his face slowly got serious. “I’ve been kissed.”

And then his face got hard, and he grabbed my arm, stepping right up close to me. “When did this happen?”

I twisted my arm free, and we stood nose to nose. “That’s none of your business,” I replied.

“Whoever it is, I’ll kill him,” Puck hissed.

“No you won’t,” I hissed back. And I didn’t mean to, but I glanced over at Kurt, just to make sure he wasn’t freaking out at all. Which turned out to be the dumbest thing that I could have done, because Puck spun around and locked onto Kurt like a heat-seeking, Mohawk’d missile of doom.

“What did you _do_ to her?” he demanded, bearing down on Kurt.

I grabbed his arm, and tried to pull him back. “What the hell business of yours is this anyway?” I yelled at him.

“I’m gonna get you, Hummel,” Puck growled. “I’m gonna turn you inside out.”

In all honesty though, I think Puck was going to have to get in line, because at that moment Mercedes shook herself and turned on Kurt. “You kissed _her?!_ You knew that I liked you and you still went running after her?” She turned on me and gave me such a nasty look that I almost lost my grip on Puck. “What, were you molesting my boy to get someone else’s attention?”

And then Rachel chipped in with, “Don’t get mad at Finn. It’s not her fault Kurt wasn’t honest with you.”

Which led to Mercedes telling Rachel to stay out of it, and Rachel telling Mercedes to do likewise, and those two exploded at each other.

Quinn apparently wasn’t in the mood to deal with this shit either, because she looked down at Puck from her seat near the back, and said coolly, “What’s the big deal? It’s not like you tell Fee everything.” Puck stilled a little when she said that, and he froze completely when she added. “It’s not like you tell her who you sleep with.”

Santana put it together before I did, looking back and forth between Puck and Quinn. “Wait, you _slept_ with him? You slept with Puck?”

And then I put two and two together. “Is he the dad?” I turned my attention back to Puck, spinning him around. “What the hell did you _do_?”

“It’s none of your business,” he shot back, trying to shove me away.

“What? You knock up my best friend and that’s not my business? You go around fucking up people’s lives and I’m not allowed to be fucking pissed off at you?”

In the background Santana was starting on Quinn for not telling her about the pregnancy, and Rachel and Mercedes were airing every single grievance they had with each out at full volume. No one really noticed me and Puck scuffling in the middle of the room.

“It’s not like it’s my fault,” Puck was saying, trying to push me away. “If you hadn’t attacked my boys I probably would have used a condom.”

“What?” I said, grabbing at his Mohawk and dragging him forwards. “Is that when it happened? You beat up my friends, totalled my locker, and ruined Quinn’s life all in one afternoon?”

We tumbled to the ground with me sitting on his stomach, trying to go for the face and him struggling to grab my wrists. “Sex makes life better, dumbass,” Puck shot back and I managed to get a punch in to his cheek. And oh boy, by the look on his face, that made him mad.

“How you could do that to her?” I yelled as he got a good grasp on my wrists and wouldn’t let go,

“Because she reminded me of _you_ ,” he yelled back. And the room went silent.

“That... that doesn’t make any sense,” I replied, still struggling to get my hands back, but to be honest a lot of the fight had been knocked out of me. I mean, what?

I was saved by the twin distractions of Mr Schue coming back in, seeing three separate fights in progress and yelling “ _What_ is going on here?!” and Quinn making a break for the choir room door with a hand clapped over her mouth, like she was going to puke.

I jumped up, and ran after her.

*

*

 

“So,” I said as Quinn rinsed her mouth out after throwing up an awful lot. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she replied. “Morning sickness just doesn’t stay in the morning where it belongs.”

“So,” I said again. “You and Puck.”

Quinn braced her hands on the edge of the sink, like she was going to be sick again, and let out a slow breath. “Puck and I,” I she agreed at last.

“Huh,” I said, for a lack of anything else to say.

“I was just... I was sick of feeling alone,” she said. And then she straightened up and stared at herself in the mirror, pulling herself back together. And then she looked down at her stomach. “And now I guess I’m never alone.”

I stared at her stomach. I didn’t think she looked pregnant yet, but she would eventually. “Is he being a dick about it?”

Quinn laughed, a weak sound in the girl’s bathroom. “Puck is nothing but a dick,” she said at last. “He doesn’t want to know, and I can’t tell my parents.”

I reached out and grabbed her spare hand, squeezing it. “You’ve got me,” I said. “If that means anything.”

Quinn looked down at our joined hands, and then back up at me. “It means I have a good friend,” she said at last. I just wished that was anything close to being enough.

*

By the time we got Quinn looking composed and left the bathroom, practice had been called off and everyone sent home. Mr Schue was waiting in the hall with our bags, and this exhausted look on his face.

“Are you two okay?” he asked, and I figured he wanted to know both if Quinn was sick, and if we were going to try and kill one another sometime soon.

“We’re fine,” Quinn replied, picking her backpack up with a grace that I just didn’t get. She’d just thrown her guts up – couldn’t she be a little bit shaky or clumsy?

I grabbed mine and slung it over my shoulder with enough force to make it bounce around. “Thanks for bringing our bags out,” I said.

“Are you going to be okay with Puck in Glee?” he asked me. I figured that I wasn’t the right person to ask that, what with Quinn the baby-momma standing right next to me. But I figured that maybe Mr Schue didn’t know that part yet, and of the two of us, I was the one with a habit of handing Puck’s ass to him.

“It’s fine,” I replied.

He gave us both long looks, like he didn’t believe us, and then gave up. “Alright. Go home, I’ll see you both next week.”

I punched him on the shoulder as I shuffled past him, and the smile he gave me in return wasn’t really a smile.

What a bummer end to an afternoon.

*

In the parking lot I slouched against Quinn’s car. “I think we need to tell someone about your baby.”

Quinn snorted. “Everyone already knows.”

“No grown ups know. I think maybe we should tell my mom. She’s a nurse, and she’s had a baby herself.” Quinn didn’t look at all keen, so I turned on the puppy dog eyes. “Your parents are going to find out eventually, and you’re going to need help whatever you decide, and maybe you should even have help making some decisions, you know?”

Quinn bit her lip, and looked away. “I’ll think about it,” she said at last. “But you have to promise not to tell her until I say so, got it? Promise me, Fee.”

I held up my pinkie, and promised. She climbed into her car, and drove away. I watched her go, and turned some things over in my mind. She’d made me promise not to tell my mom.

She hadn’t made me promise not to tell anyone else.


	10. In which Fiona is a bit of a creeper, and then plays basketball.

I spent all of Saturday trying to pretend that I didn’t have any problems to deal with. Mom had ordered me to stay out of Mr Schue’s problems, Quinn had made me promise not to tell anyone about her baby drama, Rachel didn’t answer my IMs, and Puck... well, I wasn’t thinking about Puck at all.

What he’d said didn’t make any sense. And, I mean, he did dumb shit all the time, but this? I just expected him to have at least some common sense in that department. And then trying to justify it with- Anyway, not thinking about that.

I was mooching around one in one of the prettier parks Lima, shooting hoops with myself. The ball ran away from me, and while I was chasing it, I spotted Mr Schue’s car. I knew Brittany lived nearby, and I knew that she’d said he lived near her. I bet that he lived in the building it was parked next to. I walked over and checked the names on the letterboxes – because what’s the point of betting if you never find out the outcome? – and there was W. Schuester and B. Ryan written nice and neat on a little tab for apartment 3c.

Huh, I guess I won.

I didn’t honestly want to go inside, except I totally did. You know that feeling you get when you sneak around? And you know that getting busted is never going to be worth that little thrill, but you do it anyway? I’d never been inside an apartment building before, except for that time I went to Chantelle’s place a few summer’s back, when her parents had just separated. It looked nice enough through the glass doors. And the doors didn’t look like they had those locks meant to keep ex-husbands out. And it wouldn’t be that bad to just poke my head in and _look_ at the carpet.

And that’s how I ended up standing awkwardly in the hall outside Mr Schue’s door, listening to the yelling going on inside.

“You sold it?!”

“You never used it!”

“You sold my ukulele?!”

“It was a fucking ukulele!”

For a moment I wished someone was with me, so we could turn and look at each other, and giggle at the sound of an adult saying ‘fuck’. So we could whisper and fill in the gaps when yelling became muted by the two of them moving through the apartment, the way Puck and me did when his mom tried dating and it didn’t work out.

The sound of something getting turned over with a crash shook me out of my thoughts. And then the “What the hell are you doing?” and the “I can’t _believe_ you,” and the “Will- Will, don’t you fucking leave this here,” kind of let me know that, hmm, this was one of those messy fights. I was just about to sneak back off down the hall when the front door was wrenched open, and there was Mr Schue with his jacket in one hand and his keys in the other, yelling over his shoulder “I’m going to get my ukulele back!”

He slammed the door shut as he stepped out into the hall, and we both jumped a little at coming face to face. Then there was a kind of plastic-y splintering noise as something small hit the other side of the door, and Mr Schue cringed.

“That sounded like my disco cds.”

I couldn’t help but snort out a laugh. “You own disco music?”

He gave me a look, and his mouth curled a little at one side. “You’re right. It’s probably past time that happened.” We started walking down the hall, Mr Schue with his hands shoved in his pockets and me absently rotating my basketball between my fingers. “Is there a reason you dropped by?”

“Oh, right. Um, there was, kind of. There’s been some stuff... But you sound like you have enough, and I really didn’t mean to hear any of that. I mean, not that I did, I just got there just before you came out and I’m really sorry, I just-”

He cut me off with a laugh as we hit the stairs. “It’s okay.”

“So... you really have a ukulele?”

“Yeah, well, used to, I guess. Unless I can track it down again. But I’ve got a guitar, too. Acoustic.”

“Oh, cool. I’ve got a drum kit. Well, most of it. The seat kind of broke and I need a new pedal for the base drum because the current one sticks. And I’d really like to get one of those double pedals because then you can do all that crazy ba-ba-ba-ba- _bah_ and it sounds awesome.”

“That does sound awesome,” Mr Schue said, and he looked like he meant it to. “Are you okay?” he asked suddenly. “You said you wanted to talk?”

“Oh, that. Right. I’m fine, I mean, there’s nothing really up with me, exactly. But there’s stuff going on with everyone else, and some of it I’ve been sworn not to tell, and that’s just kind of heavy for me, you know? And you’ve always been really easy to talk to, and I was even hoping that maybe some of this stuff, you could maybe not be a teacher when you listen?”

Mr Schue held the door open for me as we stepped outside his building. “I can try.”

I beamed at him. “Cool. I really don’t know where to start though.”

“Try starting with the biggest thing,” he suggested.

“Okay,” I took a deep breath. “Well, this friend of mine. She kind of did something stupid, with a boy who is even stupider, and now she’s kind of pregnant.”

Mr Schue paused, and looked me up and down. “Just to double check, when you say ‘a friend’?”

“I actually mean a friend. I mean, me? Aside from anything else, my mom would kill me. Not that Quinn’s mom – shit, forget I said that.”

“Said what?” Mr Schue asked, and when I looked at him in disbelief he smiled, and nudged me with his shoulder. “So this friend... her parents wouldn't approve, and the boy is an idiot.”

“Yeah. And, I mean, I said that I’d help her and I wouldn’t tell anyone but... She’s pregnant, people are going to notice, right?”

“Has she had any tests done to make sure she’s pregnant?”

I paused. “I don’t know.”

We walked across the grass of the park as Mr Schue explained about how doctors can do a blood test to check hormone levels, and how periods can stop for a number of reasons, and how if you are pregnant there are things you need to do like take vitamins because the baby will pull them from your body, and creepy stuff can happen like our hair falling out, and that there can be problems if your hips aren’t wide enough.

“Wow. You really know a lot about this.”

“I taught health when Mrs Primrose was on long service leave.”

Mr Schue, teaching sex-ed. I still go red thinking about that.

“And you should get your friend, who isn’t Quinn, to make an appointment at planned parenthood, look into what her options are, and what would be the best – the healthiest – thing for her to do. And,” here he paused, considering his words, “and if her parents are going to react badly, you might want to talk about her options. Where she can stay, and things like that.”

“She can stay with me,” I blurted. “I mean, my mom’s a nurse, so that’d be good, right? And, yeah.”

He looked at me, and smiled warmly. “You should tell her that,” he told me. “And ask your mom, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed. Just as soon as Quinn would let me.

“I’ll keep an eye out at school,” he added. “Just in case any random girls who I don’t teach at all start throwing up and looking ill. You know, help them get passes to some lessons and make sure the nurse knows. That sort of thing.”

“That’d be great. Just, you know, in a very general kind of way.”

“I can keep a secret,” he said.

I turned the ball over in my hands. “I know.”

“So,” he said after a short pause during which I stared at my hands, and he stared out across the park. “Does this friend being pregnant have anything to do with you beating Puck up yesterday?”

“Um.”

“Right.” He nodded at the ball in my hands. “Want to shoot some hoops?”

Mr Schue wasn’t too bad; he was better than Puck. We started off standing some ways apart, taking turns in throwing a shot. He asked me about the other kids in Glee, making sure they were okay.

“Kurt’s doing okay, since he came out. Did he come out? I don’t know. He’s stopped being closeted, I guess. I don’t think anyone’s noticed.”

“It’s good that he’s not getting a hard time. Well, not about that.” Mr Schue looked over at me as I lined up my shot. “Mercedes seemed to be quite angry with him on Friday.”

I missed my shot, and had to run and collect the ball. I passed it to Mr Schue, and he caught the ball easily.

“I don’t know,” I said at last, when he’d taken a shot and the ball had bounced off the hoop. “He just needed to figure things out, I guess. And he used me to do that.”

“Are you angry?”

I was genuinely surprised. “What? No. Kissing is like food, you know? You don’t know if you like the taste until you try it.”

“That’s... one way of looking at it.”

“And I guess I kind of used him to see if I liked guys, so, it’s kind of hard for me to hold it against him, you know?”

I looked over at Mr Schue, and he had this odd smile on his face, like he knew a secret and he wasn’t going to tell me. I remembered Quinn telling me about him being engaged. I guess sometimes having a favourite flavour isn’t so easy.

“So. Puck didn’t kill him then?”

“No,” Mr Schue watched as I lined up my shot. “I sent him home and then yelled at everyone else.”

“You didn’t yell at Puck?”

Mr Schue shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to notice these days.”

When the ball bounced after the shot we both stepped forwards to grab it, bumping against each other and then tousling for the ball. It broke into a real game of one on one then, snatching and shoving, and for one brief moment Mr Schue had the ball, dribbling it with his back to me as I tried to reach around him and grab it, all Octopus Woman with my stupidly long arms. I gave up on getting the ball away from him, and tried just getting him away from the ball, grabbing him by the waist and dragging him back. He laughed, and took a wild shot at the hoop, yelling “Foul!” as he did, and then we both scrambled to get to the ball first.

I completely did not quietly obsess over that one moment. Not at all.

We ended up flopped on the grass, him panting with the occasional small laugh in there, and me puffing and not knowing exactly where to look.

“Is there anything else going on that you want to talk about?” he asked eventually.

“No,” I replied. “Yes. I don’t know.”

He looked over at me, and waited until I got my words sorted.

“Puck’s just been weird lately,” I said at last.

When it became clear that I wasn’t going to say anymore, he said, “Boys are like that.”

“He just... We used to be friends, you know? Best friends. And that changed and, okay, that happens, I get that. But he goes out and he has all these girlfriends and heck, he does more than just kiss them, but somehow I’m not allowed to hang out with someone I like? And he has all of those stupid football friends who are jerks and don’t like each other anyway, but I’ve somehow done something wrong by making friends who actually like me? It’s just, argh. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re growing up,” Mr Schue said.

“ _He’s_ the one growing up,” I grumbled.

“You both are. And you’re both changing. I think he just doesn’t want to lose you.”

“Yeah?” I was sitting with my knees pulled up to my chest, doing a pretty epic sulk. “And how is acting like a jerk going to achieve that?”

Mr Schue chuckled. “Some boys just never grow out of the mindset that punching someone in the arm is the only way to say that you like them.”

I glanced over at him, and then reached out and chucked him on the shoulder. He smiled easily and punched me back. Not that it meant anything like that, or... We were just having fun, and it felt good to have fun with someone. Even if it was a teacher.

“I’m going to have to do something about him,” I said at last. “I’m getting sick of fighting with him.”

“Sometimes it’s not a bad thing to clash, if it means you both get your opinions out there and heard.”

“Like you and Bryan?” I asked.

Mr Schue paused. “That’s probably not the best example,” he said at last.

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s okay.” I got the feeling that maybe since I had shared so much of myself, poking at his life wasn’t the trespass it could have been.

“Did he really sell your ukulele?” I asked, trying to get my head around the idea. Would you go to a pawn shop, or was there some kind of black market for ukuleles in Ohio? There could be – I’d never met anyone who owned one before. Or maybe having a ukulele was just one of those things that people didn’t talk about.

“Yeah,” Mr Schue said with a sigh. “He did.”

“Why?”

There was a long silence then, and when I looked over Mr Schue’s mouth was pulled into a hard line, and he was staring back over at his building. “It’s getting late,” he said finally, getting to his feet.

“Yeah,” I replied, slowly following his example. “Look, thanks for listening to me babble and all of that. It was really cool of you.”

He looked back at me then, all warm green eyes and gentle smile, his hair a little mussed from the game. “It’s fine. You can talk to me whenever you need to, okay?”

I smiled, and probably blushed a little. “Okay. I’ll- I’ll let you get back to your stuff.”

“Don’t forget to think about songs for Invitationals,” he said as he walked away, walking backwards and calling out to me. “We want a rough set list by the end of next week if we’re going to make it.”

“Alright!” I called back. Then I waved, and he waved back, and I turned around and started heading home. It had been a weird day. Weird, but kind of good, in the end.

*

Then I got home, and found Quinn sitting on my front porch. Her eyes were red when she looked up at me.

“They found the pregnancy test,” she said, as if that explained everything.

And I guess it kind of did.


	11. In which Carole is awesome, Fiona gets busted, and everyone is snappy.

One thing about my mom? She can be super awesome sometimes. Okay, most of the time. She makes mac and cheese with, like, three different kinds of cheese at once. I know, she’s amazing. Anyway, she put up with me and Quinn explaining everything and maybe even making a little bit of sense some of the time.

Quinn was pregnant.

Her parents hadn’t taken it well.

Quinn had run off as soon as the shit hit the fan.

And then we ate like a million cookies while she cried and mom bushed her hair off her face and called her ‘sweetie’.

And then? Mom busted around to the Fabray house like she was... I don’t know, Kurt would have an acronym or something for it, I’m sure. But she was badass. We didn’t even see it – she told us to wait on the front step and to brainstorm what stuff Quinn would need. Not that we did, what with us hanging on every word.

“Is there a reason,” she said, after the very nice and sweet introduction of who the hell she was and what she was doing in their kitchen, “why your daughter is scared to come home? Is there _any_ reason at all for her crying in my kitchen and talking about her parents hating her? Hmm?”

I knew exactly how my mom would be raising her eyebrow at the ‘hmm’ part. It was a pretty scary look.

“Listen, lady, I don’t think you have any right to come in here and-”

“Oh, I have plenty of right. As a parent, as a nurse, as a compulsory reporter of any abuse, be it emotional or physical. I think I have plenty of right to see if it’s safe for Quinn to come back here at all.”

“Come-? You think that we’ll let her back? After she went and _ruined_ herself?” Quinn shuddered when her dad said that, and I did my best with an awkward, one-armed hug.

“Oh, you’re blaming her for this? Did you even talk to your girl? Because I can tell you, girls don’t learn to go running to a man to hide their problems from the television, they learn that bull right in the home.”

And Quinn’s mother made her first and only appearance with the line, “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Don’t you think you can turn this on us, that our... that _that girl_ -” and Quinn shuddered again, “went and betrayed her upbringing, her morals by going out and sleeping around. And then she _lied_ about it.”

“Oh yes,” mom said. “Because you’re taking it all so damn well. You listen here, maybe instead of going and blaming the girl – the _sixteen year old girl_ \- who made a mistake and is doing her best to deal with it in a responsible manner, maybe you should take a moment and blame the messed up parents who brought a girl up who thought she had to lie to them to stay safe, who thought that reputation was more important than health and happiness, and who despite all that still tried to take all of this, this _shit_ on herself out of fear of _hurting_ her parents. Your girl Quinn isn’t the one who screwed up biggest here.”

And then Quinn’s dad’s voice got low and dangerous. “You think you can come in here and lecture us? You think you can come in here and try to tell us that _that_ girl is anything other than a cheap _slut?_ ”

Mom didn’t answer, but there was the smack of flesh hitting flesh, and Quinn and I both jumped on her front porch.

“I think my mom just beat up your dad,” I whispered.

Quinn clapped her hand over her mouth to muffle a small squeaking noise. I don’t know if it was a laugh or a sob or both. There were low voices murmuring for a while, and then my mom appeared at the door, leaning against the frame.

“Come on, team,” she said. “We’ve got twenty minutes and then he’s coming back with a gun. So let’s get cracking.”

We trooped up to Quinn’s room, and crammed what we could into two duffle bags. All of her underpants, most of her pants, the tops that would fit her for a few months.

“Think elastic,” my mom told us. “And only bring the comfortable shoes.” And then we trooped back out, her clothes over my shoulder, her toiletries and other junk over mum’s, and Quinn following with her pillow and a single teddy bear, hiccupping down the stairs. She paused at the bottom, staring at her mom who was staring back, fat tears rolling down her face, smearing her eyeliner and dripping into what smelled like a gin and tonic, no tonic.

They didn’t say anything to each other, and eventually mom tugged her away. Then we climbed into mom’s car, and the longest sleepover of my life began.

*

We spent the night gorging on pizza, fell asleep on the couch and armchair, and then woke up late on Sunday.

“Do you need to go to church or anything?” I asked as we brushed our teeth in our small bathroom.

“I think I can miss it for this week.”

Mom made us go down to the DVD rental place and get some happy stuff to watch. I got the first two Toy Story movies (cowboys and astronauts? How could you not love that?) and Quinn got a heap of stuff that was really old, like, Marilyn Monroe movies, and the first ever James Bond film, back when he was hairy and I think Scottish.

“This is one of my favourite movies,” she said, as we watched two men dressed as women try to blend in with the band, and Marilyn sang 'I Wanna be Loved by You'.

“Really?”

Quinn nodded. “It’s just so crazy.”

I figured that our lives were crazy enough, but there you go. She seemed to like _‘Toy Story’_.

“You’re like the dinosaur,” she said at one point. “You’re big, but you’re not really that scary.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m totally Woody.”

“Mr Schue is Woody,” Quinn corrected. “And I don’t know who Buzz would be. Maybe you could be Buzz?”

“Who are you then?” I asked. “Little Bo Peep? Jesse?”

“I want to be the car,” Quinn said, and we left it at that.

*

“Your room is tiny,” Quinn said later, sitting on my bed.

“Yeah, well, we don’t have a lot of space.”

Quinn looked around at my stuff. At the cowboy wallpaper, and the parts of my drum kit. At my old TV and new-ish X-box, and my clothes all over the floor and my lamp with a shade that’s marked like a football field.

“I like it,” she said at last. “It’s like you.”

“Well, that’s good,” I replied awkwardly. “I liked your room, what I saw of it.”

Quinn made a noncommittal noise. “It was alright,” she said at last, before flopping back on my bed. Mom was out getting a spare mattress from one of her work friends, and Quinn and I were supposed to be clearing space for it. I kicked some of the clothes into one corner, making space for her bags.

“Fee, do you want me here?” Quinn stared up at my sloping ceiling as she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Oh. I just wondered if maybe it was... if it was just the right thing to do.”

“Well, it is the right thing,” I said at last. “But it’s also something that I want to do, and something that mom wants to do. We like you, Quinn. You’re my friend.”

Quinn rolled her head to one side, and gave me a watery smile. She was crying again. “Sorry,” she said, wiping at her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “I guess I can start blaming the pregnancy hormones.”

“Hey,” I said, plonking down on one corner of the bed and making her bounce. “No leaking hormones on my bed, clear?”

She laughed and nodded. After that I started dumping clothes on my bed and throwing things into my closet. She’d fold my clothes and put them in neat piles, ready to get crammed into draws when I was done. I put on an old John Wayne movie that I had on tape, because Quinn had apparently _never_ seen a real cowboy movie.

By the time the floor was clear, Quinn was asleep on my bed, curled up around a neat pile of jeans and t-shirts. I turned the movie off, and let her sleep.

*

I’m still kind of amazed that school the next day was so normal. I told Quinn that we could probably skip, if she wanted to pull sad eyes at my mom, but she said that she wanted to go.

“How many more normal days am I going to get?” she asked, tying her hair back in a tight ponytail.

Okay, that was a point. Mom even waved to us as Quinn pulled away from the curb. Forget just normal, we were going complete picket fence. I wondered how long it would take people to notice that something was up with Quinn. I mean, she put on the same clothes and talked to the same people, but there was just something very sad in her look as we milled around before school. Funnily enough, people never pick up on what you think they will.

“So,” Kurt said, leaning against Mercedes and jutting one hip out. “It sounds like you had an exciting weekend.”

My eyes widened, and I felt Quinn go still beside me. “What are you-?”

Mercedes gave me a cheeky grin. “Tell us all about your hot date with _Mr Schuuuuue,_ ” she said in a sing-song voice.

It took me a moment to catch up, and then I coloured. Right, the park. In a small town like Lima, I was kind of amazed that I went so long before anyone said anything.

“Oh, right. That was, I mean-” and then I caught sight of Mr Schue walking towards us, and zipped my mouth shut.

“Morning guys. Finn, Quinn, could I have a word?”

I slammed my locker shut, and tried to ignore Kurt and Mercedes making silent kissy faces at me behind Mr Schue’s back. We followed him to his office without saying anything.

He shut the door, and gestured for us to take a seat. “I just wanted to let you guys know that Fiona’s mom rang the school this morning to let us know about the situation.” He looked over at Quinn, who was keeping her face impassive. “Yes, the _whole_ situation. At the moment Figgins, Miss Pillsbury, and Mrs Lancaster the school nurse are the only other members of the faculty who know. We wanted to keep things as normal as possible for you.”

Quinn nodded once. “And why do you know?”

Mr Schue looked at her for a long moment, searching her face, and Quinn shifted uncomfortably. “I guess that someone decided that I was a good person to have in your corner,” he said at last. “Anyway, I just wanted to let the two of you know that, if you have any problems or anything that you want to talk about-”

“Blah blah blah,” Quinn cut him off, before giving him a tight smile. “We’ll let you know.” And then she scooped up her bag with those graceful moves of hers and stalked out of the office.

I gave Mr Schue a shrug, and muttered a thanks, and took off after her. But then the bell rang, and we had different first lessons anyway, and I decided to just let her go. We lived together now, it’s not like she could avoid me forever.

She did her best, though. That lunch, she was back over with the Cheerios with Santana and Brittany, and Puck was over with the football team – not that I ever expected him to come and hang out with the Glee kids or anything, especially not with the bruise on his cheek that I’d given him. If he’d wriggled around a little less, it would have been a black eye. But Mike said hi to me in the lunch line, and Matt smiled at me and did that half nod thing that guys do, where they really just lift their chin up. I guess that they had a good time on Friday, before the beatings started.

“So,” Tina said, as soon as I sat down. “About the p-p-park?”

I rolled my eyes. “And how do you guys even know about that?”

Kurt smirked at me. “We have our ways.”

I stared at them all in turn, until Artie cracked. “I saw you two playing basketball while I was walking my dog. What? It’s not like he’s in a chair.”

I shrugged, and picked at my lunch. “That’s pretty much it,” I said, playing it cool. “I ran into him at the park, and we played some ball.”

“That’s totally not what happened,” Mercedes said, giving me a dark look for even thinking of lying.

Artie pushed his glasses up his nose. “I saw you two turn up together.”

I sighed, throwing down my fork. “Okay. I was mooching at the park and I realised that Mr Schue lived nearby. I had some shit going on-” thanks to the epic blow out on Friday, no one questioned that, “-and I’ve dumped on him before, and so we played some ball while I bitched about things for a while. The end.”

“Huh,” Mercedes said, and while she didn’t follow that up with anything, I could tell that she was thinking there was more to it than that.

“That’s pretty cool,” Tina said at last. “Him helping you on a weekend.”

“I think he was happy to-” I slammed my mouth shut, but it was too late.

Mercedes narrowed her eyes. “Happy to _what?_ ” she asked. “And don’t you even think about lying for this one, I’ve got a sixth sense for lying.”

I sucked a deep breath in through my nose. “I think he was happy to get out of his apartment,” I said at last. “He and his boyfriend were kind of fighting when I turned up.”

They all raised their eyebrows. “Well,” Kurt eventually said. “I suppose it makes some sense. You can’t date a crack head, or a guy with Mr Schue’s questionable taste in music, without some conflicts.”

“What were they fighting about?” Artie asked.

I paused again. “I don’t know. It’s kind of private, them fighting and all. And it’s not like I heard much. It’s just... they were fighting, and it was bad, and that’s that.”

Mercedes gave me a look like she was trying to figure out which fingernail to pull out first to get the rest of the story out of me, and Kurt looked like he was bored already. Tina was frowning, her chin resting on her fist. “It’s a shame that he’s dating such a jerk,” she said at last.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Miss Pillsbury doesn’t like him.” Heads turned in my direction. “Shit,” I said. “I didn’t say that.”

“Girl, have you been stalking him or something?”

“No!” Maybe. I guess it really depended how you defined stalking. Oh god, I was turning into one of _those_ students. “I’m just really good at eavesdropping,” I tried. “No one notices me.”

The four of them looked me up and down. I guess a giant with pink hair and a clashing red Titans shirt wasn’t exactly a prime example of un-notice-ability.

“New topic,” I said, picking up my fork again.

Artie cast his eyes around the cafeteria, as if looking for a topic. “Quinn’s baby drama?” he suggested.

“Not in public,” I hissed.

“She’s right,” Mercedes added. “There might be three or four people who don’t know yet.”

Kurt looked at me with an evil glint in his eye. “What about Puck’s amazing bombshell of a revelation?”

I gave him a blank look. “What?”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “What he said to you on Friday,” he translated.

“ _No,_ ” I said. “New topic.”

*

That was pretty much it, until Spanish that afternoon with Quinn and Mr Schue. I sat between her and Kurt, idly trying to decide who I’d copy off later, even as my mind wandered. Quinn hadn’t spoken to me since that morning, and I wondered how long that would last. Would she go back to being the ice queen to me to cancel out the fact that we were rooming together?

Mr Schue’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to check the caller ID, hit ignore, and then put it back in his pocket. He went on teaching us the words for the weather in Spanish ( _el tiempo_ ). We got as far as _Está nublado_ before his phone went off again. He hit ignore again. It was about then that I started paying attention. I mean, Mr Schue’s phone was like a personal enemy to Glee. He _always_ answered it.

Mr Schue was saying “-but when you respond, you will have to decide whether to use one of two verbs: _hacer_ or _estar_ ,” when his phone went off for a third time. He switched it off, and dropped it into the drawer of his desk with a clunk. “Now- Yes, Santana?”

I could feel Santana primly lowering her arm behind me. “How come you’re allowed to play with your mobile in class, and we’re not?”

“Because I already went through high school,” he said patiently.

“So,” Santana replied sharply. “When I grow up and get a job, I can do unprofessional things like playing with my phone while I’m at work?”

Mr Schue gave her a tight smile. “When you grow up, you can do whatever you like,” he said sweetly. “But in my classroom, you keep your phone out of my sight.”

I looked at Kurt and we exchanged raised eyebrows. Mr Schue was, well, he wasn’t strict. Even when he did tell people off it was kind of half-hearted, like he didn’t mind what we did so long as we learned something, or at least pretended.

It looked like it was a rough day for everyone.


	12. In which Kurt is a domestic goddess, everyone has their own soundtrack for success, and Puck doesn’t sext anyone.

Quinn was the same on Tuesday, so I went and ate lunch out in the courtyard while the weather was still nice. I watched some guys toss a ball around, watched some girls painting their nails with just one tiny bottle of colour. How is it that so many people have such easy lives? Or maybe we all had shitty lives, just at different times. Which I guessed was good. If we all went through hell at the same time, I guess no one would make it out of high school alive.

Things changed on Wednesday morning. Mainly with my mum yelling up the stairs “Fiona! Get down here!” while I was still brushing my teeth and trying to stay upright. I tripped down the stairs in my pyjamas (a t-shirt that was too big, even for me, and some boxers) and found Kurt standing in my kitchen, making pancakes.

“Am I still asleep?” I asked.

“Yes,” mom replied drily. “And so is the breakfast fairy.”

“You’d better hope you’re asleep too, Mrs Hudson – can I call you Carole? – because my pancakes are certainly what dreams are made of.”

I sat down in my chair with a thud, still trying to wrap my head around the twin ideas of anyone being that perky in the morning, and that I was actually getting pancakes for breakfast on a day that wasn’t a holiday.

And then Quinn came downstairs, pulling her hair into its usual tight ponytail, and everything stopped for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Kurt said at last. “I didn’t know you had company.”

Mom took the decision making out of my hands, and said, “Quinn is staying with us for a while.”

Kurt and Quinn gave each other long, appraising looks. “I see,” Kurt said at last. “Well, that might actually make my job a little easier.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” I asked, managing to dodge the slap mom aimed at my head for my bad manners. “Does your stove not work?”

“Hm? No, my kitchen is fine. But when I turned up your mom was telling the eggs off for being at their use by date and, well, any excuse for pancakes.”

“Awesome.”

“No, I’m here for a much broader, more socially important reason.”

Which was Kurt speak for ‘I’m going to dress you’.

“Never underestimate the power of fashion to brighten up even the most surly of moods, and Finn sweetie, you have been bordering on surly this week. Add to that the incredibly bad news from last night, and the trial of a day that’s ahead of us, you’re going to want to look your best. Also, I need to make sure your hair isn’t falling out.”

“Wait, what bad news?”

Kurt raised an eyebrow. “The e-mail that Rachel sent out.”

“I, uh, haven’t checked my e-mail yet.”

Kurt gave me a long look, as if not checking my inbox every hour on the hour was unforgivable and incomprehensible. He put a plate of pancakes on the table, and slid them over to me. “No bad news before breakfast,” he said, nodding at the plate. “So eat up.”

Over his shoulder I could see my mom grinning into her coffee. I glared at her and she shrugged. “I like this one,” she said simply. Kurt beamed.

*

“So,” Kurt said when he saw my room, “this is where the beast sleeps.”

“Beasts,” I corrected. “Quinn is sharing with me.”

Kurt’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m amazed that even one of you can fit in here,” he said absently, and I pulled a face at him.

Kurt started going through my piles of clothes (they never quite made it into their drawers or onto hangers), throwing items at me. I was halfway out of my shirt before I realised, _hello_ , boy in the room. I snatched a sports bra off my desk and headed for the bathroom. Quinn was back in there, doing her make up, so I compromised and changed in the hall with Kurt throwing clothes through the doorway at me.

I ended up in the shorts, black shirt, and sweater vest from the shopping trip. “It’s past time you showed these off,” he said, “and winter is on its way.” He also found a light blue suit jacket with grey stripes down it.

“This is amazing,” he said.

“It’s my cousin’s,” I replied. “He left it here after a funeral.”

“Does it fit you?”

I couldn’t get the top button done up, but it fit okay. Kurt gave me a critical look. “It’ll do,” he said at last. “Now, make up.”

I guess that was where Quinn came in. She pulled my face this way and that, getting eye gunk and lip gunk on, and at the same time Kurt pawed through my hair like he was a monkey grooming me, making sure my extensions weren’t going to fall out any time soon.

“You’ve got some new growth coming in,” he said as he poked my bald patch. “That’s good.”

“You really know a lot about this,” Quinn said, stepping back and staring at me critically. You know, looking good would be a lot easier if people didn’t peer at you so much when you gave it a shot.

“What can I say?” Kurt asked, mussing my hair up with gunk. “It’s a gift.”

“So what’s all this about an e-mail?” I asked.

“Finn!” mom yelled up the stairs. “ _Late!_ ”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

*

“So, in summary, they’ve had their Invitationals. They were awesome. And we’re amazingly behind schedule, as per usual.”

“Well, Mr Schue did say he wanted us to be thinking about songs...”

“Finn, forget thinking, if we don’t get our acts together we’re going to miss the application date. No application, no competition. It was all in Rachel’s e-mail.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll try to check it more regularly.”

“Well,” Quinn said, pulling her backpack onto her lap and opening the back door in Kurt’s car, “I hope you losers have fun sorting this problem out.”

Kurt glared at her in his rear vision mirror. “And just where do you think you’re going?”

Quinn gave him a look that was full of sass right back. “To hang out with the popular kids,” she said. “Where I belong.”

“Right up until you start showing,” Kurt replied, and Quinn paused.

“Come to practice,” I said to her.

She looked back and forth between me and Kurt, and then slid out of the car.

“Is she always that friendly?” Kurt asked. “Because I was nearly drowning in hugs and happiness.”

“Be nice,” I replied, getting my stuff together. We headed into school together.

*

Invitationals was all we talked about during the day. In math Mercedes passed me a note that was nothing by R’n’B songs. In history Kurt whispered about show tunes the whole time, to the point that I was actually listening to the teacher and trying to shut him out. Between class we conference called. Well, they did. My phone isn’t great, and too many people talking at once tends to confuse me, so I just walked close to whoever was willing to share their phone and translate. Rachel even came up to me while I was half in my locker, and thrust a list of something like twenty ideas at me.

“Here are some preliminary ideas,” she said.

We sat together at lunch (well, the core Glee geeks. The football and cheerleader contingents kept to their own kind), talking over each other.

“Look,” Rachel said, laying her hands flat on the table. “There is a shown preference for groups who perform show tunes, and I’m sure with enough practice we could get ['Razzle Dazzle'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-zEtAuKuUY&feature=related) from _‘Chicago’_ to a workable performance.”

“Forget that Razzle Dazzle B.S. What we want is a good, strong number with a lot of soul in it.”

Kurt pointed a long finger at Mercedes. “She’s right. Also, I refuse to sing anything that was tainted by Rene Zellweger.”

“I still have no idea what any of these songs are,” I told Rachel, scrolling through her iPod.

“There’s a lot of variation in these suggestions,” Artie said, flipping through Rachel’s list.

“No there isn’t,” Kurt replied. “They all cast Miss Berry as the lead vocalist.”

“Well, yeah,” Artie admitted. “But I mean, there are songs about everything here.” He looked up, and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Maybe we should pick a theme first, and then choose the songs that fit?”

We thought it over. It was a good idea.

“Okay then,” Rachel said, smiling primly at us all. “Everyone has the rest of the day to pick a theme, and then we’ll take a vote during rehersal.”

“Speaking of votes, did someone _elect_ you as Queen of Glee?” Mercedes asked. “Because I’m pretty sure I missed the meeting where you got put in charge.”

Rachel gave Mercedes a sweet smile, and fluttered her eyelashes. “You don’t get elected queen,” she explained. “It’s just something you’re born to do.” And with that she swept her things together, and headed off for class, her socks pulled up and her skirt swishing happily.

“I really want to punch her sometimes,” Mercedes said, before letting it go and getting her own gear together.

Tina grabbed my sleeve as I stood up. “You need to tell the guys about rehearsal.”

“Wait, what? Why me?”

“So they’ll come. We’re going to need everyone there if we’re going to get going as a group.”

Artie nodded in agreement. “And you are the member of Glee least likely to get drenched in slushie with the attempt.”

Ugh. I’d really thought I was past having to do that kind of stuff.

*

I ran into Matt and Mike by Matt’s locker, which is near the French room.

“Guys,” I said with a nod. “Am I gonna see you at Glee tonight?”

Mike grinned at me. “Are there going to be more beatings?”

“There’ll be beatings if you don’t show up,” I replied, and I even shook a fist at him. He laughed, and Matt smiled, and after exchanging some kind of weird, silent communication, they looked back and me and nodded.

“Excellent.”

*

I caught up with Brittany in the hall. “You’re coming to Glee tonight, right?”

She nodded. “Coach Sylvester says we still have to go.”

I paused. “Why does the Coach want you to do Glee?”

“I don’t know,” Brittany said, and I had no doubt at all that was true. “I just do what people tell me.”

“Well... come to Glee. And make sure that Santana and Quinn come, too.”

Brittany’s vague stare suddenly focused on me for a frightening minute. “Your hair is pink.”

Was she for real? “I know,” I replied. “It’s been like that for a while.”

Brittany smiled. “I like pink. It reminds me of baby bunnies. When they’re, like, really small.”

I smiled at her, a little uneasily. “Bunnies are nice,” I agreed.

I liked Brittany. But she was fucking weird sometimes.

*

That left Puck. I could corner him by his locker, but there was a good chance that a) he wouldn’t be there, since he never bothered getting books or anything for class, and b) he’d be surrounded by football dudes. And if you want a guy to do something that you know he doesn’t want to do, asking him to do it in front of his very manly friends wasn’t going to help any.

So, due to a lack of other options, and because I had no idea what to actually say to him, I sent him a text.

**come to Glee?**

If there is one word that you can’t shorten when texting Puck, it’s ‘come’. It took a while, but he texted me back.

**u talkin 2 me now**

I stared at the message for a while. Was I not talking to him? I mean, I hadn’t talked to him since Friday, and my latest attempt to punch his face in, but he hadn’t talked to me either. Not that I was doing a very good job of talking to him with, you know, words coming out of my mouth and stuff. And while I normally had a list of things to tell Puck about or to tease him about or whatever, now my brain was just blank when it came to him. I kind of wanted to yell, about the Quinn thing of course. But I just had no idea what was going on with him, or me, or whatever.

But I did know that the idea of getting up on stage and performing whatever the hell that song was from some musical about a state scared the crap out of me. And that I didn’t want to do it alone.

**Course. Wont stop just cuz you bruse easy**

It took until the end of English, but I got a reply that made my face light up.

**U r a jerk**

I tapped away, even as I was being told off for texting.

**see u there**

*

Mr Schue was late to Glee. He was in a bad mood, but clearly trying to pull himself out of it. I think having all of us there, and at least half of us so keen to get going and doing things made it a lot easier. Actually, it was really fun – we’d all throw out ideas, and single little snatches of song, and talk over each other. Puck wanted some Metallica, and we broke out into ['Enter Sandman'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2jfV1DzcuQ). Artie wanted some They Might Be Giants, and it turns out that Matt liked The Decemberists, so they were off and gabbing away. Well, Artie was gabbing, Matt was nodding, and occasionally he said “Yeah”.

Rachel wanted something from Cabaret, Mercedes wanted something from Dreamgirls, Quinn wanted some old blues, Tina wanted some gothic rock. I was kind of amazed that we were all so different, and yet we worked kind of okay together.

“This ain’t working,” Mercedes said, raising her voice over the rattle of our voices. “Time to bust out our themes.”

She suggested ‘doin’ it tough’. Tina liked the idea of ‘family’. Rachel, of course, wanted the theme to be ‘stars’.

“What about ‘relationships’?” People looked at me, and I realised that it had been me that spoke. “I mean, half of all of the songs ever written have been about love.”

Puck nodded in agreement. “And the rest are breakup songs.”

I looked at Mr Schue. “Okay,” he said. “That’s an idea that can really tie the rest of them together. What do you all think?”

I guess everyone suddenly thought about their favourite song, because yeah, light bulbs went off over people’s heads, and most of them agreed, which was enough.

“So, what are some songs about relationships that you guys identify with?”

Wow, what a list. Puck suggested ['Poison'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Es_lUmsp40), by Alice Cooper. Quinn came out with ['Why Don’t You Do Right'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lnE_L_E8M). Then, not having followed the theme, I nominated ['I hate Myself for Loving You'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbiYv_lNfFA), by Joan Jett. That led to one awkward moment.

To break the moment, Kurt suggested something by Blondie. Brittany absently said “When I think about you, I ['touch myself'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wv-34w8kGPM).”

Rachel smiled politely. “I didn’t know you liked that song.”

Brittany gave her a puzzled look. “It’s a song?”

Mr Schue had to guide us a lot, help us to find songs that had good backing parts, or could be layered to make a stronger sound, or have leads that would suit a number of voices, so we could trade lines. Rachel took most of his suggestions with good grace, but every time he knocked back a Celine Dion song her shoulders got a little bit tighter.

In the end, the only song we agreed on was my suggestion, ‘I Hate myself For Loving You’, because, aside from me, Kurt, Quinn and Santana could all pull it off, dipping their voices low, and Mercedes got a kick out of singing up and over us, and with the boys we had the volume for some good, angry vocals.

“It’ll surprise them,” Mr Schue said. “And this is a song that you can all throw yourselves into, really let it rip. We’ll get working on that, and then see if we can’t settle on another song next rehearsal. Maybe something that shows the other side of your voices.”

Despite being rough around the edges, we sounded really good. It was fun and full of energy, and yes, I may have stopped singing and just started yelling the lyrics at some points. But hey, it was fun. And god did it feel good just to act like a dork with my friends and laugh.

Puck looked over at me, and grinned as he sang the line _”Hey, man, bet you can treat me right.  
You just don't know what you was missin' last night.”_

I shoved him, and he bounced into Quinn who turned around with the line, _“I wanna see your face and say forget it just from spite.”_

It was a song about a messy relationship, and that fit us just right. I looked over at Mr Schue, who was dancing between Matt and Mike, clapping and stamping and providing the beat for us.

It was perfect for all of us. And maybe I had an idea about that.


	13. In which Fiona has a daring plan, Puck sides with Fiona, and everyone is nervous.

“No way,” Mercedes said. “No way in _hell_ could we get away with doing that twice.”

“It’s not that I don’t support the idea,” Artie said. “It’s just that I’m a little concerned there may be some ill effects. Like Glee club getting shut down and all of us getting wedgied to death.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, and stared at them hard. “It’s a great plan,” I said stubbornly. And it was.

“Look,” Kurt said, leaning forwards and trying to calm me down. “While I am personally all in favour of meddling, interfering with a _teacher’s_ relationship is taking it one step too far.”

I ran my hand through my hair, and took a small amount of pleasure in the way Kurt cringed. “Glee is going to go nowhere unless we start getting some real help from Mr Schue, and he can’t give it to us if he’s too busy worrying about his boyfriend.” Not to mention that he was a really great, really sweet, (totally hot) guy who deserved a whole lot better than getting his stuff pawned off and getting harassed by his douche of a boyfriend while he was at work.

“If there is one thing that I know,” Mercedes said seriously, “it is that you do not get messed up in any kind of love affair that involves someone’s crack-head boyfriend.”

Puck suddenly flopped down onto the bench beside me. “Who has a crack-head boyfriend?”

“Mr Schue,” Artie and Tina supplied in unison.

“See,” Kurt said, “if you’d just joined Glee earlier, you’d already know all of this.”

“Pfft,” Puck replied, and left it at that.

“It’s a sweet idea,” Tina said. “B-but I just don’t think it’ll work. And aside from that, you’ll never get R-Rachel to agree.”

“Agree to what?”

I’ll say this about Glee club, at least half of us seemed to have a natural instinct for timing. I laid out my great plan of epic greatness again, a little half-hearted because Tina was right, there’s no way Rachel would go for it.

“It’s perfect,” Rachel said, and I looked up at her in surprise. “With someone as musically inclined as Mr Schuester, the most direct and effective way to communicate anything would most certainly be through song, and I agree that we’re going to need his full attention in the weeks until regionals.” She paused, catching her breath. “Also, it would count as my random act of musical kindness for the month, since I’m no longer allowed to perform at the bus shelter.”

It took a while to sink in, but then I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. The Queen of Glee liked my idea. It was going to happen.

*

For the first time, we all sat together at lunch, all twelve of us. We needed to steal some extra chairs to do it, and Tina sat on Artie’s lap, but we managed to fit around one table.

“Okay,” Rachel said, a note pad in front of her and pen in hand. “We need to start from scratch.”

“What?” I said. “No way, we can keep ‘I Hate Myself’. It’s what gave me the whole idea!”

“Finn,” Rachel said calmly, like she was talking to a child. “Your idea was great, and I understand that you have some affection for the song. But we’re here to build upon a good idea and make it great. And I really think we can pick a better song.”

There was a pause while everyone turned that over, and then Puck broke it with a lazy stretch, lacing his fingers behind his head and making his shoulders pop. “I agree with Finn,” he said.

“There’s a big surprise,” Quinn muttered under her breath.

Under Rachel’s stare, Puck just shrugged. “It’s a song about being messed up and sexy and angry,” he explained. “And that’s where Mr Schue is right now.”

Mike snickered. “You think Mr Schue is sexy?”

“No,” Puck replied with an eye roll. “I just think he’s sexier than _your mom_.”

I tried to get the conversation back on topic. “If we start with it, we can then progress to a song about breaking up, and then maybe a song about being better off? Get his thoughts going in the right direction.”

“It would give us the benefit of surprise,” Artie added. “If we started with a song that was actually on our set list, it would lull Mr Schue and anyone able to pull us off stage into a sense of security.”

So it was agreed. We had our first song.

“Alright, what next?” Rachel asked. “Something about breaking up or ending. I would suggest ['A Little Fall of Rain'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ptdGPt9wt4), but for once _‘Les Mis’_ just isn’t able to provide an appropriate number.”

“['Call Tyrone'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVSIPHQdQT0),” Mercedes said, with a grin. “Best R and B song about kicking a guy to the curb there is.”

“['Song for the Dumped'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVk_e31dnlE),” Matt suggested.

“Yeah,” Mike nodded. “It’s short, sweet, and easy to belt out.”

Puck was still sitting beside me, with his hands laced behind his head. “['What About Love'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE5GGMhmo-M)?” he said.

Kurt gave him a withering look. “We’re not talking about love,” he said scornfully.

“No,” I said. “It’s a song, by Heart.” Heart may be one of my favourite bands. “It’s about... about loving someone, and not understanding why they don’t love you back. It’s about having so much to give.”

They thought it over. “We’ll put it in the ‘maybe’ list,” Rachel said.

“Alright, that’s two rock numbers we got down.” Mercedes pointed two fingers at me and Puck, and gave us a glare that wasn’t as serious as it could be. “You two aren’t allowed to help anymore.”

I looked over at Puck, and he tilted his head a little, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. We both smiled, and bumped fists.

So we had a first song, and we had a few candidates for the middle song, but the problem was what to put at the end. Quinn suggested we end with ['Big Girl’s Don’t Cry'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agrXgrAgQ0U), by Fergie.

“It’s a song about dealing with things yourself, and growing as a person. That’s a good message to send.”

“It’s a total downer,” Santana replied, looking bored. “You want something that says ‘get the fuck out of my life, so my students can stop talking about me and get back to doing things that aren’t completely lame’.”

“Like ['Hit the Road Jack'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Tiz6INF7I),” Artie said.

“Whatever.”

I opened my mouth to suggest ['Love is a Battlefield'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjY_uSSncQw), but Mercedes gave me the stink eye, so I kept quiet.

“Maybe we should go for something really hard hitting?” Kurt said. “Below the belt.”

“['Call Me When You’re Sober'](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RrA-R5VHQs)?” Tina suggested.

“Yes,” Kurt said, “exactly like that.” And Tina beamed.

“I think that you’re all missing the point here,” Rachel said with a frown.

“I thought the point was to let Mr Schue know that-”

“ _No_ ,” Rachel said. “The point is that we’re putting on a _performance_. We may have a message and a motive, but we’re still doing this to entertain people. And if you’re going to entertain people, you always need to end on a high note.”

Amazingly enough, despite the rock and the raw and the whole, slightly unbalanced theme we were running, Rachel was the one who found the perfect song for us to end with. Something that could build and be big and passionate and full of us and our voices and that message we wanted to send.

As she said at the time, “Bette Midler will _always_ save the day.”

*

In the end, Mercedes wouldn’t back down from ‘Tyrone’, and I honestly think that Rachel’s choice was the only one that really fit the show choir vibe. So we had to turn our two rock songs into one. And that’s when I was introduced to the idea of a mashup. Two songs, cram bits of them together, voila. It’s a lot harder than it sounds.

So the guys offered to help.

All of them except Puck.

Fuck, man. I don’t even _know_.

*

“Do you think it’ll work?” I asked Quinn that night, as she sat on my bed (hers, now) and brushed her hair.

“No,” she said flatly. I tried to hide my disappointment, but when you’re my size with my face, trying to hide at all is kind of pointless. “I think it’s a nice idea, though,” she said. “I think he’ll like it.”

I flopped back onto the mattress on the floor. “Why won’t it work?” I asked, aware that I was probably starting to sulk.

“Because people make mistakes,” Quinn said evenly. “And when you make a mistake, you have to fix it yourself.” I heard the soft clack as she set her brush on my newly cleaned off bedside table. “Sometimes people do things just because it’ll make such a mess.”

I got the feeling that we weren’t talking about Mr Schue anymore.

“How come you’re helping us?” I asked. “I didn’t think you’d want Glee to taint your last days.”

Quinn twisted around until she was lying on her stomach, looking down at me. “Coach Sylvester asked us,” she said at last. “She wanted to know if Glee would be a threat to the Cheerios.”

It took me a while to figure out what she was saying. “You were _spying_ on us?”

Quinn shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not a threat to the Cheerios,” she said. “I don’t think Coach will do anything to hurt Glee.” She lay her chin down on her folded hands.

“Do you think she’ll do anything to you?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged again, but she looked a lot smaller now. All I could see was her face and her arms, and her long blonde hair trailing down the side of my bed. “You can’t be a pregnant cheerleader,” she said at last. “It’s one or the other.”

I swallowed. I knew how important being a Cheerio was to Quinn. I don’t think there was even much of her that wasn’t a cheerleader, in some way. “Did mom make an appointment for you?” I asked.

“Next week,” Quinn said softly. “But I already know.”

I nodded. And then, not knowing what else to do, I held my hand up to her. She took it, and squeezed it tightly for a long moment, before letting go and rolling over. “We should get some sleep,” she said.

She turned the light out, but I think we were both awake for a long while after that.

*

The next few weeks, well, they were crazy busy. On top of school, and everything else, we had three Glee rehearsals a week, and then another three ‘unofficial’ ones, to perfect our secret playlist. Part of me thought that they weren’t really necessary. I mean, we all knew the songs, how hard could it be? Then I realised there were twelve of us, and there would be dancing, and that the audience would be a heck of a lot bigger than the assembly had been.

“There’s a late game on that night, and a PTA meeting in the afternoon, so I booked the auditorium between the two,” Mr Schue said with the most excited look I’d seen on his face yet. “We should be able to pack the place out.”

Everyone’s parents. Everyone’s siblings. Knowing our luck, every member of the football team, slushies at the ready.

“We were always going to perform in front of an audience,” Rachel said. “And this will be great to prepare us before we go onto larger venues.”

“Wait?” Puck said. “You mean that even _more_ people will see us?”

Rachel brushed it all off. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I can assure you that we won’t be able to see past the third row. Fourth at most.”

My math wasn’t great, but I worked that out to be over a hundred people. All staring and judging and wondering why we weren’t throwing touchdowns.

“We did the assembly,” Rachel said. “This will be even easier.”

“And a lot less controversial,” Mr Schue added. “Right?”

We all nodded. Oh boy.

*

I think the most arguments were about what we should wear. Crazy, right? Kurt wanted all black, with scarves and things to break it up. Rachel thought that black on a black stage would make us too hard to see. A few of us didn’t mind that problem.

Mercedes wanted us all bright and fierce. Puck replied with “There is no way in hell I am dressing like you.” For perhaps the first time ever, Kurt agreed with him. Mercedes looked like a bowl of fruit salad, and very few people can work that look.

“We’re rocking out,” Puck said. “That means jeans, boots, and no shirts.”

“We’re wearing shirts,” Quinn said firmly.

“Some boobage would distract the audience from our performance,” Artie mused. Tina frowned at him and he hastily added. “And that would be a bad thing. Shirts are definitely where it’s at.”

I think we compromised just because no one would back down – blue jeans, black tops, whatever accessories we wanted.

“You are wearing a shirt,” Kurt told Puck firmly.

“I’d like to see you try and make me,” Puck replied. “I am raw stud power, and there will be some fine honeys in the audience.”

Quinn and I punched him in the arm at the same time. Kurt raised an eyebrow at Puck and said, “I really don’t think you can handle the women in your life already, let alone more.”

Puck looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “I can handle it,” he said, and I looked away. And then he was back to joking with that smug, jock face on. “Nothing hotter than a little tough love.

*

It took me almost until the last minute to work up the courage, and then Rachel went and did it for me.

“Mr Schue, will your partner be coming to the show?”

Mr Schue looked a little surprised. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Maybe?”

“You should make sure he comes,” Rachel said, with that neat little smile that impressed her teachers so much. “Show him how all of your hard work is paying off.”

I nodded in agreement – my sole contribution. Mr Schue smiled at us. “We’ll see,” was all he said.

*

And then it was the night. Eleven nervous teenagers (and Rachel) crammed into the girl’s dressing room of the auditorium (because the boy’s was too small for us all to fit). Worrying about the cut of our jeans, being made to stand with our arms and legs spread out so Kurt could get all of the fluff and dust off us with strips of tape.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Puck said, eyeing him off.

“I’m more concerned with getting a rash,” Kurt replied icily.

Mercedes and Tina wove between us all, wrapping scarves and tying bandanas and draping chains. Everyone had something to distinguish them from the rest – Rachel had a long red scarf tied into a knot that looked like a flower pinned just above one hip, Tina had a long sleeved black shirt that had holes cut for her thumbs to poke through, and then zips across the front that were undone to show the baby blue of the singlet she wore underneath, Kurt had white boots and this weird mess of chains and ribbons that crossed over his chest and back. Not a lot of what Kurt wore ever made sense to me, but his hair was gelled up at the front, and I could see he was getting into the spirit.

In the background I could hear Puck saying, “ _These_ are the only accessories I need.” I was willing to bet that he was flexing his arms while he said it.

Quinn looked over at me and smiled. She, Santana, and Brittany had all let their hair down, and coordinated with belt chains and bandanas tied around their upper arms. She came over to me, and grabbed a spare scarf as Mercedes passed us. She looped it around my waist and tied it to one side. It was light, and had a yellow and black leopard print on it. It matched the gloves I had bought from Hot Topic, which I was currently tugging at and worrying about.

“Here,” Quinn reached into her makeup bag and pulled out a small bottle. “Glue,” she said. “It’ll help those stay in place.”

Apparently gluing clothes on is more common than you would think.

Mr Schue stepped through the door, rapping on the frame with his knuckles. “Wow,” he said, “You guys look great. This is your ten minute call.”

Kurt shooed him out then, telling him we needed to compose ourselves, and that he needed to go and grab a good seat. I sucked in a long breath, and then let it out slowly, wondering if this would all end horribly.

“It’s not too late to back out,” A quiet voice said by my ear. I tuned, and saw Puck standing beside me, his hands shoved in his pockets, making a show of looking casual. “I can set off the fire alarm.”

“I’m sure people will evacuate on their own, once you open your big mouth.”

He smiled at me. “And people say I’m not useful.”

I smiled back, but it was a little weak. “We’ll be fine,” I said, hoping that I meant it.

Puck gave me a long look, the kind that was hard to read. “Yeah,” he said at last. “We’ll be great.”

And then Rachel was calling us over for a group huddle, and Kurt was fussing over everyone’s hair, and Mike said, “Wait, were there dance steps for the finale? Or are we just swaying?”

And then the little bell in the dressing room chimed, and it was time to go on.


	14. In which this turns into a song-fic, Mr Schue gets a clue, and nothing ends neatly.

I’ll admit, Puck’s suggestion of just skipping out on the whole thing was tempting. The audience was _packed_. I don’t care what Rachel said, you could see a hell of a lot more than four rows from where I was standing. And then the drums kicked off, and I didn’t have my own heart beat any more, just the vibrations of the bass drum thudding through me. And then Artie came in on guitar, just the right sound all thick and angry, and I thought ‘How often am I ever going to get the chance to be a rock star?’ I let out a little yell, just like Joan would, and then I stepped forwards, my left leg stamping the beat, and I jumped right in.

_“Midnight, gettin' uptight. Where are you?_  
You said you'd meet me, now it's quarter to two  
I know I'm hangin' but I'm still wantin' you.” 

Then Santana stepped up beside me, and if I thought I was a rock star I was dead wrong. Her movements were sharp, and angry, and her voice had that little edge of danger to it.

_“Hey, Jack, It's a fact they're talkin' in town._  
I turn my back and you're messin' around.  
I'm not really jealous, don't like lookin' like a clown.  
I think of you ev'ry night and day.” 

And then we leaned in together, out voices blending as we sang -  
 _“ You took my heart, then you took my pride away.”_  
\- turning the notes and pulling ours lips back until our teeth showed.

Then we peeled away from each other, stepping back and giving Kurt the stage. His voice was clear, singing in his usual range.

_“I've been lonely,_  
I've been waiting for you.  
I'm pretending, and that's all I can do.  
The love I'm sending  
Ain't making it through to your heart.” 

We’d had to speed up to make it fit with ‘I Hate Myself’, but that didn’t keep Kurt from putting his all into it, moving his hands as he stretched a note, turning his head into the spotlight like he was a cat trying to rub against sunlight.

Quinn stepped into place beside him, and her voice was a touch lower than his, low and moody. I don’t know how to describe her voice, it’s like it arches, like she’s giving you that look that lets you know that you’re just not good enough.

_“You've been hiding, never letting it show,_  
Always trying to keep it under control.  
You got it down and you're well  
On the way to the top.  
But there's something that you forgot.” 

Santana and I kicked back in, backed up with the guys, our voices loud and cranky, taking up space with sound just like we took over the stage with our bodies.

_“I hate myself for loving you ._  
Can't break free from the, the things that you do.  
I wanna walk but I run back to you, that's why  
I hate myself for loving you .” 

Puck had the next few lines, and to give him credit, he could move when he wanted to, smooth and slow across the stage. He was always good at anything that involved his body.

_“Daylight, spent the night without you._  
But I've been dreamin' 'bout the lovin' you do.  
I won't be as angry 'bout the hell you put me through.” 

I cut in there, taking over the lines and pointing at him, pushing him across the stage as I sang.

_“Hey, man, bet you can treat me right._  
You just don't know what you was missin' last night.  
I wanna see your face and say forget it just from spite.” 

He grinned at me, but I just didn’t have the time to think about it, about what was going on with us, because my body had started buzzing and nothing was going to get between me and this performance.

I almost missed Artie’s lined completely, too caught up in dancing and singing to focus on anything outside of my own body, and how good this felt.

_“I can't tell you what you're feeling inside._  
I can't sell you what you don't want to buy.  
Something's missing and you got to  
Look back on your life.  
You know something here just ain't right. 

That was the cue, the cue for us to fold away into two different groups, half of us singing the chorus for ‘I Hate Myself’, yelling it and chanting it out over the audience.

_“I hate myself for loving you ._  
Can't break free from the, the things that you do.  
I wanna walk but I run back to you, that's why  
I hate myself for loving you.” 

The other half stood at an angle, so they were singing at us but their voices carried out into the auditorium, belting out a fast version of ‘What About Love’s chorus, winding up and around and through our anger, getting right in deep and grabbing at our chests.

_“What about love_  
Don't you want someone to care about you  
What about love  
Don't let it slip away  
What about love  
I only want to share it with you.” 

And then we repeated, and we built, right up until we hit just the right sound, and then we stopped, frozen still in our struts and out posturing, and the music died down around us.

It was in that brief moment that stretched forever as the song ended that I finally spotted Mr Schue in the audience. He had a smile on his face, like he couldn’t believe that we had done this to him _again_. My eyes travelled to the side. He was sitting between Miss Pillsbury, and a blond guy who slouched next to him, looking bored. If he wasn’t Bryan the crack-head Ryan, he must have been a stunt double.

Then we were moving and shuffling and reorganising ourselves. That hard part for most of us was over, we had time to catch our breath, keeping to simple harmonies and the occasional shift in unison of bodies as Mercedes stood front and centre, and sang her fucking massive heart out.

_“ I'm gettin' tired of your shit.  
You don't never buy me nothin'.”_

I watched Mr Schue as she sang

_“I think ya better call Tyrone_  
And Tell him come on,  
Help you get your Shit.” 

We chimed in, singing, _“Come On, Come on.”_

_“You need to Call Tyrone_  
And tell him I said come on.  
Now every time I ask you for a little cash,  
You say no and turn right around and ask me for some-” 

Judging by the way Mr Schue and Miss Pillsbury raised their eyebrows, they could pick the word we’d cut out. But hey, we weren’t interested in going back to celibacy club anytime soon.

_“Oh, Well hold up._  
Listen partner,  
I ain't no cheap thrill.  
Cause Mercedes is always comin' for real,  
And you know the deal.” 

Mercedes was amazing, and just... it was like she stretched, filling up the space with her warm voice and just a hint of sass. She cut loose at the end, ripping out some runs before her last lyric, because you just couldn’t hold Mercedes back like that.

And the audience loved that. She got cheers and stomping, and while she later attributed that to her brothers and their friends, it was still pretty fucking good.

And then Mercedes stepped back, shuffling into line next to Kurt, and I moved to the back between Mike and Puck. Rachel had been very specific about what order we should stand in. It was like that scene in Sister Act. And then Rachel stepped forwards, her hands clasped in front of her, as one note was played over and over again on the piano. I could tell by the way she held her head that she was giving the audience her ‘I’m very sweet and a little shy’, smile, the one she used when she wanted to knock someone off their feet later. And then she put her shoulders back, and lifted her head, and opened her mouth.

_“_Some say love, it is a river,  
that drowns the tender reed.  
Some say love, it is a razor,  
that leaves your soul to bleed.” 

My mom sang that song, usually when she was vacuuming. I tried to find her in the audience and couldn’t. She was probably up the back somewhere. Then I turned back to Mr Schue, who was sitting nice and neatly in the fourth row. Did he know about Rachel’s theory of how far you could see from the stage?

_“It's the heart afraid of breaking,_  
that never learns to dance.  
It's the dream afraid of waking,  
that never takes the chance.” 

He had his hand over his mouth, his eyes travelling over us as we sang. We sounded good, I knew it. Rachel had made _sure_ of it. I saw Miss Pillsbury shift, and it looked like perhaps she had reached over and taken his hand.

_“When the night has been too lonely,_  
and the road has been too long,  
and you think that love is only,  
for the lucky and the strong,” 

He got it. I knew he got it by the way his eyes slid closed, that line that appeared between his eyebrows. I knew it by the way Miss Pillsbury looked at us with those big eyes of hers, them shining even more than usual.

_“ Just remember in the winter,_  
far beneath the bitter snows,  
lies the seed,  
that with the sun's love,  
in the spring,  
becomes the rose.” 

The audience clapped, and for the first time I actually looked out at them, looked at the faces of people I didn’t know. They were smiling, and Miss Pillsbury had even gotten to her feet and was giving us a very sweet standing ovation. Mr Schue sat there, staring at us with his hand over his mouth, and his boyfriend had his head lolled back, staring at the ceiling and looking like he had fallen asleep, or maybe died.

Rachel took her bow, and then turned and gestured us forwards. We had been ordered to stand and _wait_ for it. Mercedes stood next to her, and got her recognition, and then we all stepped into line, bowing just like Rachel had taught us. We filed off stage, and into the warm darkness of the wings.

*

“You guys,” Mr Schue said, standing in the doorway with his stern face on, “suck at keeping promises.” We all froze for a moment, wondering how much trouble we were in. And then his face split into a grin. “But you were fabulous! Oh my god, I couldn’t believe it.”

We let out sighs of relief, and congratulated each other, ranging from slaps on the back to hugging and squealing. Rachel gave Mr Schue a hug, and he lifted her up off the ground, making her laugh. Then I hugged him, and lifted him up and spun him around, making him laugh and sound a little giddy.

“Is there even any point in me telling you not to do that again? I’m going to have to put little shock collars on you all.” We were wild and playful and so damn glad – no one had booed, no one had thrown fruit. We were all so thrilled that at first we didn’t notice Mr Schue reaching into his jacket, and pulling out that damn mobile.

“Mr Schue,” I said, reaching out and grabbing it from his hands. “Please don’t take this the wrong way.” I meant to just turn it off, have him just to ourselves for a while.

But then Puck snatched it from my hand, and dropped it into a glass of water. “No mobiles during class,” he said. We all stared at Mr Schue’s mobile, still vibrating in the water as little bubbles of air escaped from its casing. That struck us as painfully funny, and we couldn’t help laughing. Mr Schue didn’t even seem that mad.

“I expect you to get me a new one,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll get you one that isn’t a million years old,” Puck replied. “I know a guy who can get you an almost genuine Rolex, too.”

Then parents started coming in, hugging and kissing. Kurt’s dad told me that I was great, and mom gave me a crushing hug and told me how proud she was of me before going over and doing the exact same thing to Quinn. Quinn put a hand on mom’s shoulder, and held her there for just a little while. I wondered if her own mom had come to watch.

“You were really good out there,” Puck said, punching me in the arm.

“You were almost good yourself,” I replied, grinning and peeling my gloves off. My hair was sticking up with sweat now, as well as the four different kinds of gel Kurt had put in there.

“I mean it,” Puck said, looking me in the eye. “You’re amazing.”

I stared at him. We were best friends, had been best friends since we were practically embryos. I think that was the first time that he had ever said something that nice to me that wasn’t hidden in an insult, or coupled with a noogie. And as I stared at him, he leaned up and kissed me.

Just a neat press of his lips to mine, his mouth a little off centre. It was completely unlike the kisses I’d seen him trading with Santana that were all tongues and grinding. He pulled away, and then turned and yelled something across the room to Mercedes, and then he was back in the crowd, laughing and shoving and teasing.

Sometimes it was like he was two different people. And I wondered why I’d only noticed that recently.

*

I wish I could say that everything changed after that, but nothing is ever that simple.

Mr Schue did break up with his boyfriend, though I think it had less to do with our epic song list of romantic inspiration, and more to do with them getting into a fight at the Shop And Save and Bryan taking a swing at him. I’ve heard that he’s been seen turning up to school with Miss Pillsbury a few times, but then Puck says that he’s sleeping on Coach Tanaka’s couch. I don’t think it matters; he looks a lot happier now, and I think he’s showering us with new songs and routines as a kind of punishment for the stunt we pulled.

Coach Sylvester did find out about Quinn being pregnant. Quinn told her herself after Invitationals, told her that she’d been kicked out of home, and that with the changes her body was going through she wouldn’t be able to stay on the team. She didn’t want to hurt their chances at Nationals. Coach had stared at her for a long time, and then told her that she wished that more of her Cheerios had the mindset of putting the team first. Quinn is still on the squad, until she starts showing, and then she’ll take over some off the field duties, be assistant coach (apparently that mainly involves doing laundry, and applying massive amounts of first aid to people). Apparently Coach already has a fitness regime worked out to help her get rid of her baby body.

I’ve got no idea if it’s related or not, but a day later Puck was suspended from the football team. Something to do with his bad grades, and his disruptive nature, and rumours that he’d been associating with drug dealers. He was pissed as hell, ready to tear Figgins a new one. But Mr Schue held him back, and told him to calm down, and not make things worse. So Puck has a lot more free time now. He even spends some of it studying, so he can get back on the squad. He’s still in Glee, which is good. I think he really likes it, though he’ll never admit it. And he spends a lot of his free time with me, just hanging out like we used to.

As for me... I don’t think about Mr Schue so much. I mean, he’s still my favourite teacher, and I still like Spanish the best. But I just think, my life is so crazy right now (Quinn’s started throwing up on a regular basis, Miss Pillsbury is talking to me about _college_ , Kurt wants me to wear skirts...). And Mr Schue was a pretty crazy guy to fall for. Like Mercedes said, anything that involved a crack-head boyfriend was going to get messy. Anyway, who would honestly think that anything would happen between a teacher and his student? Deluded people, that’s who.

I’m actually pretty busy now. Basketball is starting up soon, so I have pre-season training once a week. And Coach Tanaka is trying to push Figgins to make the school team co-ed this year. He says that since there are less co-ed teams in the area, we’ll have less competition, and that any all-male teams we play might go a bit soft when it comes to shoving a chick over. Plus, he says that I’ve shown more aggression in the halls than half of the football team do on the field. And Rachel still drags me off at least once a week for a singing lesson. She’s a good teacher, because she doesn’t let me hold back. I don’t know when exactly we became cool again, but it happened. She gave me all of these pamphlets of safe sex and ‘The Healthy Guide to Knowing Your Body’. She’s worse than my mom sometimes.

And as for me and Puck... In the end I talked to my mom about it. I mean, I’d never even thought about Puck that way, and now he was damn well making sure that I did. And he was my best friend and he got Quinn pregnant, and hell, maybe of the two of them Mr Schue was the least messed up option, and that was saying something. She said,

“Fiona, honey, you’re going to make mistakes in your life. But the biggest mistake is always going to be not taking the risk in the first place. Do what feels right. Also, be sure to let Puck know that if he knocks up a second girl under my roof, I’m going to tie him to the hood of my car, and give him a vasectomy by driving through rose bushes.”

My mom? Totally awesome.

So that’s where we’re up to. Puck and I are maybe trying something. Quinn is keeping her baby. Artie and Tina are dating, though they think they’re keeping it secret. And Kurt is walking around like he’s in mourning, because his dad cut his clothing allowance after his grades started sliding. We’re going to try for Sectionals, though I have no idea how we’re going to go. Rachel wants us to win, and win by a long shot. But I think the rest of us are just happy the way we are. We’ve had a crazy few months, but we’re all the better for it. We’re friends, we’re stronger than we used to be.

And people have finally stopped trying to make me wear lip gloss.

The End.


End file.
